


for husband, for king

by evocates



Series: a guide on (dis)honouring your deities [2]
Category: Sān guó yǎn yì | Romance of the Three Kingdoms - All Media Types, 關雲長ㅣThe Lost Bladesman (2011)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate History, And your judgment will still not touch me, But trust me to know exactly how to make this good, Changes in Anatomy due to A/B/O 'verse, Chinese Culture, Chinese History - Freeform, Class Issues, Duty, Eventual mpreg, Gender Roles, I am still at the bottom of the earth, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-12 02:34:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 39,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11152413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evocates/pseuds/evocates
Summary: He looked down at his hands. The words that came to him before he succumbed rose again:I can’t, my lord. I can’t, for my hands are too small and my wrists too weak to hold onto both the weight of my office and the width of his body.His breath hitched. “What use is an officer,” he said finally, “who cannot stand beside you, my lord, due to the failings and needs of their body?”Legends and myths are made for the grand, great men; the heroes whose tales and feats are recorded in history. For the seconds of those men, they must make do with sacrifices, with smaller deeds.Or, “Five Times Zhang Wenyuan Denied His Heats for Cao Cao's sake, and One Time He Gave In.” A companion fic tolike sleeves, like limbs.Please read that first.Subtitled: “A Treatise on Confucian Roles of Class and Gender Using ABO and Porn, With Extra Exploration on the Nature of Loyalty.”Complete.





	1. 性乃迁, “nature will deteriorate”

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chuchisushi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chuchisushi/gifts).



> Courtesy names: 张辽 Zhang Liao’s is 文远 Wenyuan, 夏侯惇 Xiahou Dun’s is 元让 Yuanrang (different tone from Wenyuan’s ‘yuan’), Cao Cao’s is 孟德 Mengde, and Guan Yu’s is 云长 Yunchang. Also, in case you have forgotten, this is [Zhang Liao](http://i.imgur.com/WatFf5q.jpg), as played by Shao Bing in _The Lost Bladesman_. Xiahou Dun, in this fic, is played by [Louis Fan](http://i.imgur.com/GA70aGS.jpg) as per _Kungfu Killer_ (except with much longer hair) There are no pictures of him with an eyepatch, so here’s [one drawn on in paint](https://ibb.co/hP3wXk). (I am a srs arteest.)
> 
> Worldbuilding still based on [chuchisushi’s](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chuchisushi) ideas about ABO. Salient points regarding betas, since Wenyuan is one:  
> 1) Secondary sex/hierarchy is entirely uncertain from birth for betas and omegas, and people are sure only during puberty, in which a beta drop their balls and omegas don't;  
> 2) In other words, betas have a cock, balls, and a vagina – they can both sire children and bear them.  
> 3) Both betas and omegas go through pre-heat, and part of that consists of what I like to call a ‘courtship fight,’ in which they test the mettle of the Alphas whom they are dragging into rut with them. The contest ranges from a test of the Alpha’s ability to provide to actual violence.
> 
> Xiahou Dun’s characterisation is taken wholesale from my slightly vague memories _Romance of the Three Kingdoms_ and a lot of Internet research and casual rereads. However, I also messed like crazy with both _RoTK_ and history for plot purposes, though I try to give explanations as to why. Basically, this is AU, just run with it.
> 
> Once again, chapter titles are directly lifted from the 三字经, the three-character classic.
> 
>  **Warnings:** Still too many Chinese references and anachronisms. Though, this time, there aren’t self-translated subs because most of the fic isn’t dealing with that specific timeline. 
> 
> Beta'd by [jonphaedrus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus), who is a gift.

_The tenth year of the Cao Dynasty, early spring_  
_Xu, the Kingdom of Wei_

Wood slid over wood. Paper rustled. Footsteps, followed by a quiet _thud_ of the door hitting its frame as it closed. Quiet shifts of silk as they glided against each other.

“There are some actions that are habit-forming, and it is upon those that we have crafted the first tenets of our teachings.” The voice, low and deep, spoke as if to the air. “But here’s a contradiction: upon those self-same actions, we have built the foundations of our own destruction.”

Only one man would enter his office without first knocking for permission. Only one man, Wenyuan thought wryly, would speak like that.

He placed his brush carefully back on its stand. Splaying his hands upon his desk, he stood up without lifting his head. He swallowed down the hitch of his breath; even that calculated movement had his thighs rubbing together. The cloth of his smallclothes slipped-slid over his cock, and sparks of heat shot up his spine. 

Wenyuan pushed them away, and bowed with a hand on his chest.

“Lord Cao,” he said; a greeting that was allowed only to him now that he was no mere Lord but Emperor, seated upon the throne of heaven. When Wenyuan lifted his head, silver flashed across his vision: a snake coiled around the stem of a bamboo embroidered on a dark sleeve. “You are in a mood today.”

“I’d say the same for yourself,” the Alpha replied. He folded his arms, and leaned against the wall beside the door as he shook his head. Unlike the now long-deposed boy-Emperor, the beads on his hat didn’t clack noisily as he moved. “Should I order you away from your desk?”

Lips twitching up into a wry smile, Wenyuan spread his hands out, deliberately exposing the thin scar that was once caused by catching Lord Cao’s bare blade. “The path from my desk leads only to the barracks, my lord,” he said. “The duties of a Chancellor are many.”

Eyes flickering down to Wenyuan’s palm, Lord Cao smiled; lopsided, and only out of the corner of his mouth. “Are those duties weighing down your shoulders until they imitate the curve of a bow,” he asked, “or are they are a brace instead, without which you will crumble?” 

Despite the long years he had spent serving this man, Wenyuan still felt his breath hitching again at the knife that had been slid between his ribs. His hands fell back down to his sides, and he stared deep into the wood grain of his desk. He would not allow himself the relief they could offer when pressed against his bones, or even the softer one of his nails digging into his skin. Air escaped him, his lungs deflating.

“Yunchang’s confinement ended a month ago,” Lord Cao continued. Now Wenyuan heard the clack of beads, each one accompanied by the thud of leather soles upon the wooden floorboards. “He is more than willing to return to his duties.” He made a sound low in his throat; a rough chuff of a laugh. “In fact, he is so desperate to do so that I fear I might wake one morning to a glaive against my throat.”

Looking up, Wenyuan caught a glimpse of those dark eyes – both fixed on him and unfocused. Nearly eleven years ago, Wenyuan had watched as Lord Cao fell irrecoverably in love with the warrior who went by the name of Guan Yu. Then, he had thought that he would never again see his lord act so much a fool again, but the following years had proven him wrong. Guan Yu’s power over Lord Cao had nothing when compared to Guan Yunchang.

Easier to think on that than to remind himself of another man; a man who looked at him the same way as Lord Cao looked upon the Empress.

Shrugging one shoulder, he folded his own arms. He kept his legs still, both planted against the ground. “The princes are still very young,” he said, referring to the twins who were born only two months ago. “The world is still in turmoil.”

“The princes are under the care of the Empress’s handmaidens, and even Yunchang himself will need great effort to pry them away from such eager hands,” Lord Cao countered, shaking his head. “And this world’s turmoil will not be absolved while either of us lived.”

He paused. Then he reached up and tucked his fingers beneath the band of his hat. As Wenyuan watched, head spinning from the sheer weight of the gesture, he lifted it away. The beads made a din as he dropped the sign of his office down on his desk. The lines around his eyes deepened as he rubbed an impatient hand over his tied-back hair.

“I will not order you to take leave of your office, for the depth and wealth of your service does not merit such cruelty,” Lord Cao said. His eyes were dark and piercing as they fixed upon Wenyuan’s face. “So here I stand now, an official just as you are, and I will plead on the behalf of my younger kinsman’s sake.” Too late, Wenyuan remembered: there was a bare thread of blood, stretched thin over long distances, that connected Lord Cao with that man.

“As kinsman of Xiahou Dun, I, Cao Cao,” his lord _lowered his head,_ “beg of you, Zhang Liao, Chancellor of the Kingdom of Wei, to break this habit of denial.”

“My lord,” Wenyuan gasped, leaning forward. Belated once more, he realised his mistake: his legs shifted, and flames burst into being between his thighs and in his hips. He slammed his hand over his mouth, trying to push to involuntary cry back, even as his other one bunched around his robes. He could feel his arousal: the heavy, pulse-deep throb of his cock as the head brushed over the roughness of his smallclothes, the indecent wetness seeping from his insides to soak the thin cotton even further. His nerves, inflamed, shrieked for the satiation of a need he thought he had managed to stifle.

“Before it destroys you both,” Lord Cao finished.

 _I can’t_ , Wenyuan wanted to say. _I can’t_. There were no words to explain, there were too _many_ words: a tangled knot of them gathered at the base of his throat, so many that they had formed a band around his lungs. Choking and squeezing the breath from him.

Footsteps. The chair behind him was pulled back, and Wenyuan felt his knees buckling, hitting the ground with a brief burst of pain that could not drown out the pleasure and need that blazed within him. His eyes squeezed shut, and he heard, to his shame, a loud cry ringing out as Lord Cao’s hand slammed down on his shoulder. His skin screamed, as if the nails had pierced through the heavy, ornate robes of his office to the flesh where it joined to his throat. The spot where, when exposed, would show the marks of Yuanrang’s teeth. Bruises overlaying bruises, each healed over time, never allowed to stay because of his _habit_.

“If I, for whom you feel no desire, could bring you to your knees,” Lord Cao said, and there was a thread of sorrow in his voice that had Wenyuan’s head spinning, “How great is your need?”

“Not—” Wenyuan gasped out. “Not enough to overwhelmed my loyalty.”

“Loyalty,” Lord Cao repeated. Even without looking at him, Wenyuan could tell his expression: brows furrowed, lips thinned, contemplating a problem that he had long suspected the shape of but which had only just been presented to him. 

Then he sighed. “When you can stand again, go to the barracks.” His hand lifted from Wenyuan’s shoulder, and the rush of chilled air from the open window that replaced the heat was enough to make him gasp and shake all over again. “The answers you need will be found there.”

Wenyuan opened his mouth, some remark about Lord Cao’s uncharacteristic lack of subtlety on his tongue, but he had no air to form it. He could only tuck his chin to his chest and clench his hands around his robes, rubbing his fingers over the thick silk as desperate reminder.

“No,” Lord Cao chuckled. “It is not to my kinsman that I beg of you to seek the company of.” He paused, and laughed again. “But to my beloved Empress.”

With that last parting remark, Lord Cao stepped back. Wenyuan rubbed his eyes with his sleeves, shame filling him when he could feel the salt and heat of tears against the silk. He should bow to herald Lord Cao’s leaving, but he knew better than to try to stand. Not when every move had lightning sparking in his spine. Not when every heartbeat was nearly enough to set his slick soaking through his robes to drip down his thighs onto the wood beneath.

“Consider it.” Before Wenyuan could even find breath to reply, he was left alone with only the quiet thud of wood meeting wood echoing behind Lord Cao’s exit. Even that faded quickly.

Closing his eyes, he rested his forehead against the edge of the desk. There was a hitch building and building in his throat, but he pushed it back again. Third time too late, he realised: in giving strength to hide such weakness, he could not hold back the words from finally coalescing.

_I can’t, my lord. I can’t, for my hands are too small and my wrists too weak to hold onto both the weight of my office and the width of his body._

It took him a few tries before he could steady his breath. When he did, he pushed himself to standing. His hips throbbed once more, but he ignored it, tipping his head back and hissing air through his teeth.

His hat was askew; he righted it. When he reached for the brush, his hand trembled too much to pick it up.

***

 _The three hundred and ninety-eighth year of the Han dynasty, early autumn_  
_Yanzhou  
_

__

Lord Cao’s encampment in the city of Yanzhou was just that: a camp; a field covered with tents made of cotton and with roofs of thin leather that rustled in the breeze. The growing army tucked within their depths were dependent on the supposed gifts given to Lord Cao by the warlords who had come to swear themselves to serve beneath his flag. Or rather, Wenyuan corrected himself, they were all dependent on the silvered words from Lord Cao’s tongue, such that they could be traded for the gold treasures of arriving warlords, or the gold of rice and what from the surrounding peasants.

In this time of war, it was easy enough to tell which gold was more valuable, especially since they had only won Yanzhou a few weeks ago; even with eager hands set to tilling the fields, it would be months yet before any harvest could be reaped. Wenyuan knew that his lord agreed with him on this even if upon naught else. 

Thundering hooves approached. Wenyuan looked up, frowning, before he placed his brush back to its stand. Another warlord had come to swear fealty, he presumed, and that unfortunately took precedent over the accounts of weaponry that he presided over. He headed out of the tent, ducking down to avoid the flapping cloth in the winds.

“They said,” a voice sounded beside him, “that it is another one of Lord Cao’s kinsmen this time.”

Li Dian stood there, arms folded across his chest. His sleeves were stained with ink peeking through the cloth, well-matched with the frown creasing his forehead to form the image of a scholar. Wenyuan looked at him for a moment before he shrugged.

“Kinship means little in these turbulent times,” he said. “Our lord’s victory over the Yellow Scarves in Qingzhou has served as a great reminder to many of whatever blood ties they shared with him.”

A snort. But whatever Li Dian meant to say was drowned out as the sound of hooves grew even more thunderous. Wenyuan concentrated and, after a moment, let out a breath that was almost a sigh. 

“At the very least, they would be useful,” he said. “There are at least three thousand men arriving on horseback, and I doubt that is the entire army.” A clever warlord, after all, would have left the provisions and infantry men behind just in case of trouble.

“I never could figure out how you did that,” Li Dian said, shaking his head.

Wenyuan offered him a thin smile. “You have your talents, Councillor,” he said, “and I have mine.”

There was no point in him waiting for this new warlord's appearance, his lord's kinsman or not, so Wenyuan headed back into the tent, picking up his brush and bending his head over the papers once more.

The recent skirmish against the Yellow Scarves was a victory, but it was a costly one: most of the men's weapons were chipped, dented, or deemed entirely useless, nearly all of their armour desperately needed repairs, and their stores of arrows were almost entirely empty. There was nothing he could do about any of that, however: Yanzhou was not near any mountains or mines, and the constant war around the world had used much of the available metal that had been going around anyway. Even the gold that was being brought in by Lord Cao's supplicants could not do much when there simply was nothing to be bought, and no furnaces or blacksmiths who could be set to work for their ambitions.

Eventually, he heard distant shouts. Wenyuan puzzled over his unsolved – and unsolvable –  
problem for another moment before he sighed, putting his brush away again. He folded his sleeves back down to cover the streaks of black on his wrists, and headed for Lord Cao's command tent. By the time he entered – from behind the large oak desk – the newly-arrived warlord was in mid-speech. 

“—three thousand horses and seven thousand men,” the man was saying, his head lowered enough that only his strong jaw – clean-shaven, strange for a warlord so honoured that he was chosen as representative for all of his men – could be seen from beneath the hand wrapped around his clasped fist. “All armed, all trained, and all who would pledge their loyalty to you, my lord, if only you agree.”

Lord Cao made a noise, neutral but easy to mistake for assent by an eager man. He tapped his fingers on his elbow. “Impressive.” He tilted his head to the side. “Yet, Xiahou Dun, that does not explain your tardiness.”

The warlord – Xiahou Dun, Wenyuan noted, and recognised the surname as that belonging to the husband of one of Lord Cao’s omega brothers – lifted his head. He was grinning out of the corner of his mouth. “If my lord permits,” he said, “I will show you the gifts I have brought, and hope that they explain my delay.”

“Oh?” Lord Cao’s eyebrow rose. “Have them brought in, then.”

At those words, Xiahou Dun raised his arm. He snapped his fingers just once, the sound of it crackling through the air. The men he had waiting outside the command tent stepped in, the two of them struggling with a massive chest. Wenyuan resisted the urge to roll his eyes; more gold, then. More useless pieces of metal that would not do much in war.

Placing the chest down, the men retreated. Xiahou Dun then stepped up. He folded his sleeves with an unnecessary flourish, and, meeting Lord Cao’s eyes, reached forward to catch hold of the lock on the chest. He slid it open, and tossed back the lid.

There was no gleam; there was no gold. There, seated in that wooden chest, were blocks upon blocks of dull silver that was unmistakeably _steel_.

“From Hedong to Yuanzhou, we made a detour to Henan, and were delayed there for two years,” Xiahou Dun said. “My pride would not allow for a kinsman of Lord Cao to offer him mere paltry, cliché gifts. For that, I apologise.”

Despite the overt insincerity of those last fading words, Wenyuan found himself surging forward. His body tugged him towards the man like he was a lodestone and Xiahou Dun was the refined iron itself that he had made into a gift. He glanced at Lord Cao and, when he received a nod, took a deep breath and said, “Why have you chosen steel?”

Xiahou Dun blinked, obviously surprised to be addressed by someone who was not the lord of the army. But he shrugged, spreading out his hands. “Even in distant Hedong, we have heard that Lord Cao’s army grows by the day,” he said. “We have learned, too, of his victories. Soldiers we met frequently said that to join Lord Cao’s army was to fight every day.” His grin widened. “And to eat every day, as well.”

“That explains nothing,” Wenyuan pointed out.

“Constant battles might energise a warrior’s heart and soul,” Xiahou Dun said, “but it wears upon his weapons. Bronze turns brittle, and steel becomes dull. It will be a pity if Lord Cao’s might is stifled neither by the lack of soldiers nor by the lack of provisions, but the lack of metal.”

“So you have brought steel.”

“Steel, and iron, and bronze,” Xiahou Dun nodded. “Both in bars,” he waved towards the crate, “and in raw ore. We have brought with us, too, carts filled with wood, three hundred furnaces, and a hundred blacksmiths who agreed to come with us from Henan.”

“Furnaces, and blacksmiths,” Wenyuan said, his throat so dry he felt like he was burning from the inside out. His skin felt tight like he was wood left in the middle of the field, crackling under the burning heat of the summer sun.

“Yes,” Xiahou Dun nodded. “The furnaces are of a rather small size – for easier transportation – but the blacksmiths are skilled with the use of them.” He cocked his head to the side to an angle that was incredibly familiar. “How many men are there currently in this army?”

“A hundred and seventy-three thousand,” Wenyuan replied automatically. “Out of all of them, seven-eighths require either their armour or weapons repaired.”

Xiahou Dun blinked. After a moment, he slapped his fist into his palm, and bowed. “I will send my most trusted men back to Henan at once for more steel,” he said. “What we have brought now is enough to repair for all of the men here, including my own, but seven-eighth… that leaves very little for the arrows.” 

Wenyuan’s head spun. He had not even mentioned the arrows, and yet this man… It took all of his power to not wrap his arm around his pelvis, where the fire was licking against his nerves. He breathed out, long and slow. “You know where you might get more?”

“We have not emptied the mines,” Xiahou Dun said. His grin widened, and turned crooked again. “Besides, the villagers like us. We were rowdy enough to chase away the bandits, yet not nearly enough to harm any of them. Besides, we paid them well for their efforts, and they will live well for the next eight years, or even ten.”

Opening his mouth, Wenyuan closed it when he heard a burst of laughter from behind him. Lord Cao had his head thrown backwards, hands folded into his sleeves.

“You have chosen your gift well,” he said. He took one step forward, coming up to stand beside Wenyuan. “Though I must wonder if your gift is for me, or for my quartermaster here.”

“Does the quartermaster have a name?” Xiahou Dun asked.

Lord Cao smiled. One hand withdrew from his sleeve, dragging slowly through the air before stopping right beside Wenyuan, fingers extended towards him.

On cue, Wenyuan placed a hand on his chest, and bowed, “Zhang Liao, of Mayi.”

“Xiahou Dun, of Hedong,” the man said, bowing as well. “Well met, my lord.”

“I am no lord,” Wenyuan said. He offered a thin smile. “I am but a quartermaster, humble-born.”

“A skilled warrior,” Lord Cao said, his even voice made tremulous with threads of mirth. “One who once held off ten Yellow Scarves by his own right.”

“My lord praises me too greatly,” Wenyuan protested immediately.

“A quick mind for numbers, a great heart for soldiers, a supple spine for humility, and a deft hand with a blade.” Xiahou Dun said, his tone oddly admiring. “Surely it is my great fortune to have chanced upon the idea of gifting you steel, Lord Cao, for, with such a man by your side, how else can I win your favour?” 

As Wenyuan stifled his twitch, Lord Cao laughed. “Surely you did not worry about that,” he said. “Are we not kinsmen?”

Xiahou Dun shook his head. “Our shared blood is of great pride to me, my lord, but to you? What pride would you have that my blood runs from the same river as yours when I am but raw ore, still untested?”

“You arrived with soldiers aplenty, all willing to swear fealty to Lord Cao because of your desire has become theirs,” Wenyuan pointed out, unable to stop himself. “Will you still call that untested?”

“And how many could claim the same?” Xiahou Dun asked, arching a brow. “How many knees has the canvas floor of this tent touched within these past months? These past weeks?”

Snorting, Wenyuan matched the raised brow with his own. “For a man who admires humility so greatly, your pride burns bright.”

“Is that such a surprise, quartermaster?” Xiahou Dun fired back. “A man loves most the traits that he himself does not own.”

Wenyuan considered those words for a moment before he shrugged. “True enough,” he admitted. “Yet be careful, Lord Xiahou, for you might be in danger of sounding insincere.” 

Throwing his head back, Xiahou Dun laughed. Straightening, he smacked a hand against his chest, grin so wide that he showed all of his teeth. “My heart burns like a sword thrust into a furnace’s flames,” he said. “No falseness might touch something so red-hot.”

The thundering beat of his heart was getting annoying. Wenyuan took a deep breath. As he made to speak, however, there was a sudden clearing of the throat. It was not Lord Cao, and neither was it Xiahou Dun.

Li Dian, standing off to the side. With the rest of Lord Cao’s generals and advisors. Wenyuan blinked again, and barely stopped himself from scratching the back of his neck as sheepishness threw itself over him like water over the embers of a fire. “My apologies,” he murmured, and lowered his head. “It seems, Lord Xiahou, that we must continue our conversation on another day.”

“We must,” Xiahou Dun nodded. “At least we must cross swords, quartermaster, for I dislike you having to name me by ‘lord.’ If we do so, then I will have you call me by my courtesy name.”

Wenyuan blinked. That was a purely Alpha tradition, based upon their vaunted strength and martial skill and, in the past in less civilised times and now during the barbarians, the method by which leaders were chosen.

The pieces snapped together immediately, forming a picture that had him biting the inside of his cheek so he would not tremble. There was no reason for him to. He should be pleased; it was an honour to be raised to the status of an Alpha, to be seen to be one with enough capability to be such. Was that not what he had always wanted? To be seen as equal, and not something less? For eyes to look upon him and see true wood instead of a rotting trunk half-buried beneath shavings of expensive oak, or even common cherry?

“It will be my pleasure,” he murmured, and did not allow himself to linger on the thought that, of all the attributes that the warlord had admired in him, he did not include honesty. Then he inclined his head and stepped back, returning the spot of attention back to Lord Cao, from whom he had borrowed it. He did not slip behind the desk like his mind screamed for him to, for he was no coward to hide away. He told himself that the spiking chill – so much like needles sliding under his skin – was due to his shame for overstepping his place instead of anything else.

Despite all that, he still could not concentrate on the proceedings. The fires within him was stubborn, flaring hot even when he refused the embers any fuel, blazing amidst the winter that had seeped, far too early, beneath his skin.

Wenyuan was no fool; he felt the burn on his nerves and saw what it meant. But he knew, too, that he could never allow for it. They were in the midst of war and there was no telling when the next battle would occur, and now that steel and furnaces and blacksmiths were available, there was much to be done. He was, after all, the quartermaster.

This would be the end of it, he told himself. This would be the end of it.

Still, he was unsurprised when, three days later, he woke with a throbbing, burning heat below his hips. The slick had soaked through his sleeping robes and the sheets to stain the bamboo mats beneath. He shoved his hand between his teeth, biting down on the fleshly palm until he tasted blood, but the pain brought him no relief.

But there: _there_ , on his nightstand, a pouch that had not been there when he had fallen asleep. When his trembling fingers curled around it and pulled it open, he smelled familiar herbs that his mother once told him were best for staving off heat.

Provisions were low, and medicines ever rarer. There was only one man who could sneak up on him when he was sleeping; one man whose request for such medicines would never be questioned. 

The fire crept from his hips up to his lungs, its fingers brushing ever over his eyes. Wenyuan ducked his nose down, and took a deep, long breath of the mint mixed with mugwort. Drawing out a single leaf – of mulberry, larger than his palm, and fresh enough to still smell of green – he wrapped the mugwort in it and lit it with his flint. 

Though the smoke did not stem the fire, it allowed him to stand, and walk, and that was all he needed.

At breakfast, Lord Cao clapped a hand on his shoulder, and he did not say a word. So, Wenyuan swallowed the half-formed request in his throat, and passed the day according to the plans crafted by the hands of his duties: working beside Xiahou Dun – now a General – with the steel and the blacksmiths. He passed the next day the same way, and the next.

When the flames within him finally subsided, he told himself that the weight in his chest had naught to do with disappointment. It was merely the thick, heavy smoke from the furnaces that had settled, like relief, inside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Henan is the place where the Han dynasty created its monopoly for iron and steel works during 100 BC or so. The area _is_ famous for its steel, and there are iron mines all over the area. Nowadays, it’s shifted slightly east towards Jiangsu, around the area of Nanjing.
> 
> And yes, China was already working with wrought iron and steel by the _beginning_ of the Han dynasty, which is around 200 BC or so. The sword of the first Han Emperor from before 200 BC was already made of steel. The portable furnaces mentioned are also entirely historically accurate: they used something very much akin to the [copula furnaces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupola_furnace), which can be carted around.
> 
> These notes are me giving a massive middle-finger to the world because metalworking in China was ahead of Europe for literally over two thousand years, and people don’t know that.


	2. 不容紊, “accept no compromise”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** Yunchang does not use nursemaids. In other words, male lactation, in whatever terms that ‘male’ means in an ABO ‘verse.

_The four hundredth and second year of the Han Dynasty, midsummer  
Dense forest near the Zhanghe River_

At the end of the last winter, a group of generals revolted, banding together under the name of their previous lord Dong Zhuo who, they claimed, was a martyr who was terribly murdered. The claim was transparent – it was Lu Bu who had killed Dong Zhuo and defeated him, not any of the other warlords these soldiers were attacking – but their numbers were strong enough to bring enough chaos into the world that it had, finally, reached the Emperor’s doorstep. 

So, two months ago, the Emperor called for Lord Cao’s aid. “It is a great honour,” Lord Cao had said, but Wenyuan could read into the half-smirk, half-smile on his lips that his lord was far more pleased to have such a large piece to move in the board he had made the world into.

Unfortunately, it was a piece that they had to reach first. They had managed to fight their way into Chang’an and retrieve the boy, and were now bringing him back to the city of Xu, their stronghold. It would, Wenyuan thought, be so much more convenient if they could bring the Emperor alone, but of course, he had to be accompanied by his Empress and the rest of his harem.

At least the boy hadn’t had children yet; those would be troublesome to transport even if they did not have the armies dogging them at every step. They had ducked into this forest, taking a detour to follow west down the Zhanghe river, in hopes of being able to throw off the hounds that chased them.

It would be far too easy to believe that they had succeeded: even though it was early morning and the summer’s heat made the post-storm air around them shimmer and shiver, the forest was dark. Soft sounds of birds chirping and creatures scurrying filled in the silence in between the creaking roll of the carriages’ wheels and the quiet thump-tapping of the horses’ hooves. Lord Cao rode ahead, leading the army as per his wont, and Wenyuan – promoted from quartermaster to Colonel because he finally had a chance to test his newly-forged steel during the charge into Chang’an – lingered nearer to the back, as benefitting his position as one of the junior officers.

A distance behind him, protected from the back by infantry soldiers and in the front by officers, were the Emperor’s entourage in their covered carriages.

“Four hundred years of history and glory, and now it rests upon the shoulders of a boy who looks like he can barely dress himself.”

One particular General refused the usual protocols of hierarchy. As they headed out from Chang’an, Xiahou Dun had forsworn his vaunted place beside Lord Cao and the privilege of being able to whisper into his ear. He seemed to prefer to ride with the junior officers instead, muttering under his breath in Wenyuan’s general direction. If pressed, Wenyuan would admit that his company was rather pleasant, though he could well do without Xu Chu and Li Dian’s frequent glances in his direction.

“His youth should not matter,” he said. “He has the mandate of heaven.” Though he kept his voice low as well, speaking out of the corner of his mouth, his reason was different: he was listening.

“Such a heavy mandate for a pair of shoulders so thin,” the General remarked. His hands shifted on his reins, his own broad shoulders rolling as he urged the horse slightly to the side, until he was riding right next to Wenyuan. “Though something else puzzles me even further.”

“Which is?” 

“This period of turmoil occurred after the death of Emperor Ling, may his soul rest in peace and bring blessings to his descendants,” he placed a hand on his chest and dipped his chin down, “but if Emperor Shao had the mandate of heaven, then why would such misfortunes befall him?”

Such a terribly heavy question to ask, and one even weightier with the Emperor himself behind them. Wenyuan offered the General a thin smile and a loose shrug. “To have heaven’s favour,” he said, “does not mean that one is left untested by the people.”

Xiahou Dun threw his head back and laughed. “A good answer!” he declared. “A more satisfactory answer than any other I have ever heard!”

There was a quick reply on his tongue – to just how many others had Xiahou Dun voice such potentially treacherous thoughts? – but Wenyuan raised a hand, stopping himself from speaking and, he noticed, silencing Xiahou Dun’s laughter immediately. His brows creased as he concentrated.

“Southeast,” he said. Cocking his head, he closed his eyes, his hands loosening on the reins as he threw his full focus into listening. “One hundred men? No…” He shook his head, and leapt from the horse down to the ground, kneeling on the grass and placing his ear nearer to the soil.

Out of the corner of his eye, barely noticed, he realised that Xiahou Dun had taken hold of Wenyuan’s horse the moment he jumped.

“One hundred and seventy men, maybe more,” he said, lifting his head. “From the direction of Xiwen,” a village further to the south. “They must have ridden past us through the night to try to catch us unaware this morning.”

Looking at him for a moment, Xiahou Dun nodded. Wenyuan reached up and took his own reins from those rough-callused hands, and jumped back on his horse. Just as he settled into the saddle, the General clapped him between the shoulders. “Stay here,” he murmured.

Then he was riding forward, passing all of the senior officers to head straight for Lord Cao. “Cousin!” he raised his voice. “Have you heard this story of our shared uncle?”

Lord Cao’s head snapped up. Even from afar, Wenyuan could see his eyes narrow: for his own pride, Xiahou Dun did not call attention to his kinship with Lord Cao in public; not unless he wished to warn him, or if there was something of great importance that he needed him to pay attention to.

He watched as Lord Cao bent his head down to catch Xiahou Dun’s whispers. When Lord Cao turned to look at him, Wenyuan nodded. He never knew where the strength of his hearing had come from; knew only its usefulness, and thus had trained for his entire life as a soldier to sharpen it even further. He might not be a strong strategist himself, but here was where he could offer predictions for the enemy’s next moves. It was useful, he knew: even a few minutes’ worth of prediction could mean everything in battle.

Pulling on his reins, Lord Cao stopped his horse. Without turning around, he placed his fingers into his mouth. He sent out a series of whistles – akin to bird calls, but sharper and more piercing – and the entire army came to a stop, as if the sound had pulled strings in their legs and locked their joints into place. Then, as the wind blew stronger and Wenyuan could hear the faint yells of soldiers in the distance, he sent out another series of signals; rapid and continuous, message upon message folding on top of each other. 

Silence fell. In the distance, a bird chirped. Confused, likely, about the sounds that were like and unlike its own.

Then soldiers burst into action: infantry scattered, blades flashed, and the sound of metal slamming against wood rang out as soldiers cleared the forest to have more space to do battle in. The ground trembled from trees being rapidly cut down, and shook even harder as generals and other officers spurred their horses into a gallop and headed for their factions. Soon, they would gather the men and set them into formation: the infantry in two goose-feathers surrounding the cavalry in the middle. 

Xiahou Dun had left his horse to one of the other men, and Wenyuan handed his own off as well – he would find the mare later – as he ran towards the Emperor’s carriages. He nodded towards the assigned drivers as they scrambled away from their posts, and jumped up into the emptied seat.

“Your Highnesses,” he yelled above the sound of trees being felled. “My name is Zhang Liao, Colonel to Lord Cao, and I am here to bring you to safety. Please do not be alarmed!”

Without waiting for the lower wives and consorts’ reply, he spurred the horses into action. Xiahou Dun had already taken hold of the Emperor’s carriage, heading northwest as per Lord Cao’s instructions, and Wenyuan followed him, trying to navigate through the dense trees without running over the roots too quickly. The last thing he needed was for the omegas within to panic.

They were around five _li_ away from their original spot when the Emperor’s carriage stopped. Wenyuan didn’t need to ask or shout to Xiahou Dun to know what happened – he understood instinctively, the knowledge shuddering in the very marrow of his bones – and he jumped down from the carriage. “Your Highnesses,” he said, creeping to the side of the carriage so he could speak in a low voice to them. “No matter what happens, please do not try to exit.” He paused. “Cover your ears if necessary, please. You would not like to hear this.”

There was no time for him to wait for their reply now, either, for he could already see the riders coming in through the trees. Reaching back, he drew his sword, the metal glinting from the light shining through the leaves as he jogged forward to stand next to Xiahou Dun, a good distance away from the two carriages.

“We still have not sparred,” the General murmured out of the corner of his mouth. “And I was sadly excluded from the honour of watching your ferocity, back in Yuanshi.”

“Concentrate on your own battles, General,” Wenyuan shot back, steadying himself on his feet. “There is nothing special to see from this lowly Colonel.”

Right then, horses reared in front of them. As hooves slammed into the grass, sending soil splattering upwards, the man in front – tall, wild-haired – gave a sound of surprise. “Merely two men to protect the Emperor!” he exclaimed. Wenyuan could not recognise him; did not even want to even bother trying to remember the name of a man who would soon be dead. “Does Cao Cao mean to insult us?”

Xiahou Dun bowed low with a hand on his chest, the light glinting upon the wrought iron and entwined bronze of the hilts of his twin swords, still strapped on his back. “My lord deigns to give only the respect that his enemies deserve,” he said. Lifting his head, he smiled, showing teeth. “Sire.”

Unbidden, Wenyuan snorted.

The sound, it seemed, was more insult than the enemy general could bear. He growled deep in his throat, and waved his hand. At that cue, the riders behind him charged forward.

It was always a disadvantage to be on the ground when his enemies were astride, but Wenyuan had learned long ago that such a thing could be easily rectified: he ducked down, bending his body and sweeping out his sword, aiming the tip of the blade for the horses’ soft, vulnerable stomachs. High-pitched, panicked neighing rang out around him as he spun, aiming now for the bridles, cutting the horses loose from their masters right before he threw himself to the ground and slid away from the blades aimed towards his head.

Two men, for two carriages. They were clearly outnumbered, but Wenyuan chose to believe that Lord Cao’s faith in them was well-earned. He shoved the calculations of the possibilities of winning to the back of his mind, focusing on the rush of his blood as the world brightened and sharpened around him, and slowed at the same time. As he fought, he watched Xiahou Dun out of the corner of his eyes. The General had a reputation as a berserker, and he could tell from where it came: he laughed as he fought, his swords two flashing points of light too fast for even Wenyuan’s eyes to catch, and he shoved his blades into bodies and yanked them out with such ferocity that red quickly stained his armour, his hands, his face.

His jaw was pale and gold-smooth, lines turned stark under the slick, wet blood. He was beautiful.

Wenyuan shook away his distraction, throwing himself back into the midst of battle. At the corner of his eye: two soldiers, having lost their horses, were rushing towards the Emperor’s carriage. He worked his jaw for a moment, and cracked his neck.

“General!” he yelled. “Lend me your shoulder!”

Perhaps he was a fool to believe that Xiahou Dun would understand his meaning even though they had never fought side-by-side, when the man had not even seen how he fought. But Wenyuan _knew_ , nonetheless, that he would understand, and his faith was paid off as Xiahou Dun steadied his posture, and tilted his head.

Running, Wenyuan jumped. One foot stepped onto a shoulder, propelling him further upwards until he could kick against a tree. The branch snapped beneath his foot. Then he descended down upon those two fools like a vengeful ghost, wrapping his leg around the neck of one and driving his sword into his chest. Without pausing the moment, he yanked the blade out of the pierced heart and lungs and ribs, swinging it now sideways until he could feel a throat opening beneath the metal.

When he landed back to the ground, blood surrounded him, and his heart was beating in his ears. The Emperor’s carriage was pristine. As the broken branch landed next to him with a heavy _thump_ , he grinned.

“Thank you,” he threw over his shoulder.

Xiahou Dun laughed. “A deft hand with a blade,” he said, pointing one of his own in Wenyuan’s direction, “and a tongue thirsting for blood.”

“Is it my tongue, General?” Wenyuan asked, voice lilting. “Or has your hunger has permeated the steel you brought, and infected my sword?” He wiped as his face with a sleeve, knowing even as he did so that the cotton would only smear the red all over his skin instead of cleaning it, and not caring. 

“Such skill and ferocity cannot be granted to the sword alone.” Even as he spoke, Xiahou Dun was turning around, facing with dark eyes and blood-splattered mouth to the scattered enemy soldiers who remained. “It lies within the heart and muscle of the wielder.”

Flicking the blood from his sword, Wenyuan charged. “Is it my heart that you see, General,” he called as he slashed his blade in the direction of a soldier’s belly, “or has the blood blinded you so much that you see only your own?”

Loud, raucous chuckles mixed with the screams and shrieks of soldiers. “Is there any difference?” Xiahou Dun shouted back at him. “I have been drawn to you since the first we met, Colonel, and what can draw two such as us together than a desire for blood?”

“Then you surely have an affinity for all those who live here, in this time of war!” Wenyuan replied, ducking away from a blade before he slammed the hint of his own into a knee, making the soldier buckle before he threw a fist into his face. “There are far more monsters here than in any time that has passed in history!”

“Monsters!” Xiahou Dun yelped. As Wenyuan slashed the throat of the enemy – a quick, merciful death – he watched as the General chase a soldier around a tree. “You’ll insult even yourself so?”

“What else can we be if we delight so much in death?” Wenyuan asked. There were only three remaining, and they were turning to run. He threw his sword, and didn’t wait for it to sink into a torso before he was running after them. “If we sought to cause it at every chance?”

Metal whistled past his ear. Wenyuan didn’t bother dodging, merely bending down to wrench his sword out of the now-corpse it was buried inside before he threw it again, taking down the last enemy soldier. He ignored the nudge inside him that said he was being dishonourable, stabbing a warrior from the back: if they turned to run, then they did not deserve the courtesies of war.

Xiahou Dun’s shoulders were shaking as he approached. He bent and retrieved his other sword. “If it is for our lord’s victory,” he said, wiping the blade clean on the grass with his head tilted upwards, “then surely our bloodlust is justified.” Corpses decorated the field around them, the soil and grass soaked with red. There was no sound except for their harsh panting, staccato to each other— no, if Wenyuan concentrated, he could hear the panicked whimpers of the omega consorts, and even the soft mutters of the Emperor and the quiet sobs of the Empress. And, even further away, the yells and screams of men in battle.

They should return to Lord Cao, both to report to him their success and to aid with the rest of the battle. They should reassure the Emperor and his wives and consorts, and comfort them as much as they could. They should…

Just as Xiahou Dun made to slip his twin blades back into the sheaths still strapped to his back, Wenyuan heard his own feet hitting the ground. He watched, almost distantly, as Xiahou Dun’s eyes widened and his hand became a blur as he drew his swords again, crossing them in front of his body to block Wenyuan’s own.

“Colonel,” he said. “What are you—” 

One who could match him by brilliance of wits. One who could match him with swiftness of blade. One who could match him with sharpness of sight. None of it was enough.

“Come now,” he heard himself say, his voice tremulous and rasping with pants. “Did you not hear me call us both monsters?”

Frowning, Xiahou Dun shook his head. He was still on the defensive, blocking Wenyuan’s attacks without returning any of his own. “That was a jest, surely—”

He stopped mid-sentence, nostrils flaring. Wenyuan knew exactly what it was that he scented: he could feel it himself, the coil of heat gathering below his hips and between his thighs. The twitch of his cock as he brought his blade downwards.

Xiahou Dun went down on one knee. One sword, raised above his head, blocked Wenyuan’s right as it came down. Steel clashed, crashed, the sound like thunder and the tremors like lightning. His eyes lifted, and the darkness of them shone like a blade catching the night sky in the midst of a storm.

“You…” he said. His lips parted. “You are… You…”

Straightening, Wenyuan smiled. He slid his blade down Xiahou Dun’s, metal scraping metal, before he tapped the flat of it against that clean-shaven jaw. “You can do better than that,” he said. His tongue curled around the words, caressed them, without permission of his mind. “ _General_.”

“For four years,” Xiahou Dun said, and his voice shook in ways Wenyuan had never heard before. “For four years since we met, I had looked at you, and I had thought, I had wished I was born your brother.” He was trembling all over as he stood, like a well-made sword buffeted by strong winds. As he drew his other sword, the slide of metal upon metal shrieked. “What other reasons would I have for my eyes to be so always glued upon your form?”

Wenyuan took a step back. He lowered his blade, and took his usual starting stance with legs apart. His blood roared in his ears.

“Now I see you, I _smell_ you,” Xiahou Dun continued. He wiped his face with his sleeve, and the blood smeared there turned the skin into true gold upon the brightening sunlight. “And I know that it is not brotherhood that I sought, after all.”

Throwing his head back, Wenyuan smiled, all teeth. He raised his other hand. Thunder burst into being in his chest when those dark eyes fixed upon his fingers as he folded them, beckoning.

“Come,” he said, his own voice steady and strong in ways he had never heard it before. “If you want me, if you have to _earn_ me.” He licked his lips. “General.” __  
  
“My courtesy name,” Xiahou Dun said, his swords lowering as he bent forward, balancing on the balls of his feet, “is Yuanrang. Believe me, Colonel, I will earn the right for your tongue to wrap around that name.”

With that, he charged.

Wenyuan found laughter wrestling out of his chest as he blocked the blows coming at him, lightning-fast. He could not see the movements of Yuanrang’s arms, could barely feel them, but he didn’t need to because his blood was rushing and his instincts and reflexes had taken over, and he no longer needed to _think_.

Ducking underneath the blades that threatened to take off his head, he swept out one foot, slamming his heel into an ankle. As Yuanrang stumbled, he reared upwards like a shoot bursting out of the soil, the hilt of his sword at ready. But Yuanrang threw himself to the side, sword slapping against the grass as he rolled away. Before Wenyuan could press his advantage, he was snarling, teeth bared as he threw himself forward, blades glinting in the light bright enough to blind as he aimed for Wenyuan’s throat.

Immediately, Wenyuan stepped to the side. Wind chilled by metal bit at his cheek, and his own grin widened as he grabbed hold of Yuanrang’s wrist. The disadvantage of wielding two swords was that Yuanrang had no hands free, and he dragged the man forward and slammed his knee straight into his ribs.

“You say that you will earn me,” he said as the Alpha stumbled away, half-growling, half-coughing. “You have to try harder than that.”

This time, Yuanrang did not laugh. He simply threw himself back into battle, his twin swords aimed straight for Wenyuan’s chest even as one leg kicked out to try to unbalance him. He was faster than anyone Wenyuan had ever fought with in his life. Lightning made form. A sword caught in a thunderstorm, shivering and deadly both. The thought of those hands on him, rough-callused fingers touching skin that had gone untouched for the whole of his life, was nearly enough to have Wenyuan trembling. 

But he had trained his body too well for such weakness: he dodged the blades, and threw his own into the fray. Metal clashed against metal before they both jumped away, circling each other for a moment before Wenyuan took one look at him, turned, and ran. 

His duty chained him in the vicinity of the carriage, but he swung around the trees. Yuanrang’s blades snapped splinters off trunks as they aimed for him, and Wenyuan laughed as he tossed his head from side to side. Strands of his hair had escaped from his topknot during the battle and was now plastered to his face, but he didn’t bother to push them away. The tiny irritation was easily drowned out by the blood pounding in his veins and his heart, pounding like war drums, in his ears.

“Don’t interfere.”

That voice. That was Lord Cao’s voice. Wenyuan didn’t turn, couldn’t even make himself do so, as he dodged another one of Yuanrang’s strikes. He flung out his own blade, catching the tip into a sleeve and tearing it, and his grin, previously faltering, returned in full force.

“Are all of you so inexperienced that you can’t tell what this is?” Lord Cao again. Wenyuan could not help but hear him, but any care he had for the words so easily out of his mind’s grasp.

Reaching down, he took hold of a handful of dirt, throwing it into Yuanrang’s eyes. As the Alpha squeezed his eyes shut, rearing back to avoid being blinded, he threw himself forward, slamming his shoulder into the General’s ribs, pushing Yuanrang against the tree.

“You would be so crass to interfere in a courtship fight, Li Dian? Are you not supposed to be a scholar?”

Yuanrang threw one leg up, wrapping it around Wenyuan’s waist. He rocked his hips upwards, his hard cock a sudden line of flame against Wenyuan’s thigh before he threw his own weight forward, unbalancing Wenyuan entirely until his back hit the grass-covered soil.

Twin blades slammed down next to his head. Metal surrounded him, Yuanrang’s face framed by steel. Wenyuan cocked his head. Then he folded his legs back, avoiding Yuanrang’s hips, and wrapped his thighs around the neck that was exposed so invitingly in his direction. Without letting go of his sword, he ripped the twin sword on his right out of the soil even as he rocked his hips upwards and sideways to slam Yuanrang to the ground. Callused hands splayed on his thighs, Yuanrang’s growl rumbling against the cloth covering Wenyuan’s cock. For the briefest moment, his eyes rolled to the back of his head.

A mistake: Yuanrang’s body rolled with his feet planted flat against the ground, folded steel snapping back when bent, and he lifted Wenyuan by his thighs before he took the three steps to slam him hard against a tree.

Dark eyes met his own: Yuanrang, unarmed, but his body bracketing Wenyuan; Wenyuan, sword still in his hand. He took a deep breath.

Metal clattered down to the ground, the sound immediately swallowed up by the thick grass. Yuanrang’s sweat was soaking through the thin cloth covering his shoulders. Hips pressed against his own, pinning him there, while large hands came up to cup his face.

He was not a man for melting. More wood than steel, he could do naught but turn to ash in the face of flames. But there was only warmth in the lips pressing against his own, in the tongue diving into his mouth so hesitantly, so gently. Fingers brushing over his cheeks, following the line down to his jaw. Nails scraped over his beard as a smooth chin and jaw dragged over his own.

Shuddering, Wenyuan’s fingers clenched over Yuanrang’s sleeves. His armour dug into his chest, uncomfortable, but that irritant was far easier to dismiss than Yuanrang’s armour covering his body. His fingers dug beneath the catches, finding cloth and snarling into Yuanrang’s mouth because it was not _skin_.

“Woah.”

The voice was half-strange. Wenyuan squeezed his eyes shut as Yuanrang’s knee pressed against the tree, balancing his own body with one leg while the other supported Wenyuan’s own. Teeth grazed over the thin cloth covering the flesh that joined his neck to his shoulder. His legs wrapped around that strong waist, the chainmail of Yuanrang’s armour making cloth rub against the insides of his thighs; tiny licks of flames against his skin. It was nearly enough to make him whine, arching as his nails scraped lines of red into Yuanrang’s neck.

“If they need to borrow my carriage for a few days, I would not mind. I prefer having all of my consorts with me, in any case.”

Wait, what? _Carriage_?

“Are you certain about that, Your Majesty? This _is_ your favourite carriage, and this lowly one does not believe that they would restrain themselves.”

Breathing in through his nose – the scent of heated metal, like he was standing amidst furnaces billowing – Wenyuan splayed his hands on Yuanrang’s shoulders.

“That is… Well, you do have a point there, Lord Cao. I do like this carriage a great deal, and I would hate to lose it.”

He _shoved_.

“Your Majesty, please. You do not need to use such honorifics with me.”

As Yuanrang stumbled back, sputtering, Wenyuan landed on the ground with barely enough grace to tuck one leg beneath him. He shoved the other knee downwards, and swallowed back his gasping, hitching breath. “Lord Cao, Your Majesty, this unworthy and lowly one has been rude and unruly.” To his great shame, his voice still shook. He squeezed his eyes shut, and lowered his head even further. “He begs for your forgiveness.”

Beside him, he could practically hear the moment in which Yuanrang realised what was going on. There was a rapid scramble, and a quiet “ow” – most likely from nicking himself from Wenyuan’s blade on the ground – before he heard the _thump_ of another forehead meeting the ground.

“We have forsaken our duties and gone beyond the realm of propriety,” Yuanrang said. His words were so half-slurred with the dialect of his Pei that he was barely coherent. “For that, please receive our deepest apologies.”

“If you’re being so polite, I really don’t mind losing my carriage for your sakes.” 

“There is no need!” Too loud, both his and Yuanrang’s voices slamming together in a cacophony of embarrassment and barely-stifled need. He resisted the urge to start clawing at the ground so he could open up a hole to sink into.

“Please, Your Majesty, you honour us with your kindness,” he heard Yuanrang said. “But, truly, it is unnecessary. Lowly and unworthy as we might be, we still are capable of controlling ourselves.”

“Ah, but _should_ you?”

Peering up through the veil of his mussed hair, Wenyuan nearly allowed himself a moment of irritation when he saw the wide, mirth-filled grin on Lord Cao’s face.

“Lord Cao,” he said through gritted teeth. “Please do not tease us so.”

Throwing his head back, Lord Cao laughed so loudly that the sound shook the trees. Wenyuan’s eye twitched: the situation was humiliating enough that he couldn’t even take any joy for making his lord laugh so freely, without cares. Footsteps approached. Wenyuan lowered his head again, and kept it lowered as a hand wrapped around his elbow, urging him to rise to his feet. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw that Lord Cao was doing the same to Yuanrang with his other hand.

“There are things that not even propriety and precepts can control,” Lord Cao said, the mirth in his voice barely concealed. “Truly, I feel honoured that I have men with such passion under my command; men who hold such respect for me that they would stave off their need for my sake.” His words were the wind upon the fields after a battle, carrying away the scent of blood and death and bringing with it the cleaner salt of the sea. Wenyuan closed his eyes, raising his clasped fist and slamming his palm over it.

“No, my lord,” he said, voice soft and steady now. “You honour us instead with such a lofty view, coloured surely by the kindness of your heart.”

“Oh, I do agree,” the Emperor piped up. “Lord Cao is kind indeed.” Beside him, he could hear Yuanrang desperately stifling a snicker. He barely managed to keep his own mirth inside his throat as well; it was terribly rude, after all, to laugh at an Emperor to his face.

Lifting his head, Wenyuan met Lord Cao’s dark eyes. He smiled at the question in them, and said, “My lord, my duty supersedes all, even desire.”

“What of you, cousin?” Lord Cao asked, turning to Yuanrang.

Yuanrang laughed, shaking his head. He brushed the strands of his loose hair away from his face. “His wish is mine,” he said, and his gaze was furnace-hot upon Wenyuan’s skin. “At least in this.”

“A pity,” Lord Cao murmured. He turned away, his robes fluttering in the breeze a poor answer to Wenyuan’s questioning gaze, and headed back to the Emperor. “We must return back to the road, Your Majesty. The sooner we reach Xu, the safer you will be.”

The Emperor looked at them. Grand as his status might be, heavy as the mandate of heaven laid on his thin shoulders might be, the weight of his gaze was less than a boy still in the flush of youth. “Indeed,” he said, and stuck out his elbow to allow Lord Cao to lead him back to his carriage. “You have passionate men in your service, but their loyalty flares brighter.” As he took the first step upwards, he smiled, sweet like a child’s. “I have made a good choice in calling you for aid.”

Lowering his eyes once more, Wenyuan bit the inside of his cheek to stifle his laughter. Lord Cao’s way with words was legendary, of course, but surely an Emperor should have a mind sharp enough to pierce through its mists?

“Wenyuan, Yuanrang.”

He snapped his head upwards, and Lord Cao stood there, a distance away, with his hands tangled in the reins of his horse. Behind him, unnoticed by Wenyuan until now, some of the other generals was were also lifting themselves up into their saddles.

“This will change nothing.” He tilted his head to the side, and a ghost of a smile came upon his lips. “Unless, of course, both of you wish for it.”

Yuanrang huffed out a laugh beside him as Lord Cao nudged at his horse and turned away. He glanced at Wenyuan out of the corner of his eyes. “Tell me, Colonel, as one who has served him longer,” he cocked his head to the side, “has he ever spoken straightforwardly?”

Turning to him, Wenyuan did not answer. He waited until the sound of horses started to fade before he reached out and splayed his hand and allowed to hover an inch above Yuanrang’s cheek.

“My courtesy name,” he said, keeping his voice even, “is Wenyuan.” The hitch in Yuanrang’s breath echoed loud in his ears. He did not move away as one large, callused hand caught his own. He did not allow himself to tremble as he felt dry, chapped lips upon his knuckles.

“But, General,” he said, “we have our duties.” 

“I have not misspoken to my cousin, Colonel,” Yuanrang said, his eyes so dark as he looked at Wenyuan through his lashes. “In this, my wish is yours, exactly.”

Tilting his wrist, Wenyuan brushed his thumb over the edge of the jaw. “You are a good man,” he said. “And I hope you will not regret your decision to be so.”

With that, he pulled his hand away. He turned his back and headed towards the consorts’ carriage. As he swung himself into the driver’s seat, he did not allow himself to linger on the weight and warmth of Yuanrang’s gaze on his neck.

Later, the General rode in front, taking his place amongst the senior officers. A good thing, Wenyuan told himself; he would not be able to deal with his scent and heat so near while desire coiled and coiled in his belly.

***

_The tenth year of the Cao Dynasty, early spring  
Xu, the Kingdom of Wei_

The barracks of Wei were right outside the palace; Lord Cao’s reasoning being that, as the nation was built upon the backs of battles and the blood of soldiers, they deserved to have the sight and touch of it right beside them so they would always know the reason for their efforts. Privately, Wenyuan thought that it was just so the Empress would find it easier to execute his duties as the Grand Marshal of the armies.

Even though it was mid-afternoon and the sun was blazing overhead, Wenyuan could hear the shouts of the men as they went through their drills, mixed periodically with the smacks and cracks of staffs and wooden swords hitting each other, and the duller thuds of arrows sinking into trees. He approached the gates on his horse, nodding towards the guards who bowed to him even as he pulled on the reins.

His thighs rubbed against each other. The saddle’s leather... He breathed in deep through his teeth, and headed inside.

Trees had been uprooted and replanted from the nearby forests into the soil of the training grounds, providing shade that would allow soldiers to practice even in summer without exhausting them terribly. He wove carefully through the scattered trunks, and stifled the twitch of his lips as he remembered the countless stories Yuanrang told him of the yells that would ring out, from both officers and common soldiers, when the birds shat on their uniforms in the middle of practice. 

“Are you holding a weapon or an infant?” The voice that rang out was sharp and resonant “No, I insult infants. You’d end up dropping them on their heads if you hold them like that.”

The Empress stood surrounded by the soldiers, his famous long glaive tucked against an elbow as his hands brusquely re-adjusted one of the soldier’s grips. He was dressed in the same training uniform as the soldiers, loose grey cotton robes and pants, and there were streaks of dirt on his face. 

“Thank you, Your Majesty!” The scolded soldier shouted. He slammed his fist against his chest in salute even as he stepped back in line.

“Alright!” Guan Yunchang snapped out. He tossed his glaive from elbow to hand in one swift motion, and turned. The silver tassels and embedded emeralds of his hairpin glinted in the sunlight, nearly bright enough to outshine the thick, glossy strands of his hair, braided and twisted out of his face into a bun at the back.

At that moment, the winds caught within the folds of his robes. There, another sign of his office: the soft swells of his chest, pressed flat and bound with strips of cotton. When he was within sight of all of the soldiers again, he slammed the heavy wood of his glaive down onto the platform. The sound echoed throughout the training fields. “Again!”

As the soldiers obeyed, going through their drills, Wenyuan swung his legs over the side of his horse, landing with quiet feet upon the packed soil. He ducked his head down as he heard footsteps approach, and busied his hands with throwing the reins over the low-hanging branches of a nearby tree.

“Has the Chancellor come to give more duties to this poor wall decoration?” A familiar voice reached up, lilted with mirth. “Or, perhaps, to entertain him?”

“General Xiahou,” he murmured in greeting, and turned.

Yuanrang was dressed in grey as well, though his eyepatch today was a strange yellow, too dark and dirty to even hint at the gold that belonged to the Emperor. The colour clashed horribly with both his training robes and his black hair, held up and out of his face by a messy topknot. He was leaning against a nearby tree, the hilts of his swords peeking out from above his head. When Wenyuan’s eyes landed on him, his grin widened, and folded his arms. 

“Lord Cao has, essentially, ordered me to come to the barracks,” Wenyuan replied, shrugging. “He has not told me his reasons.”

Pushing away from the wall, Yuanrang approached. Wenyuan could tell the precise second in which the scent hit him – his nostrils flared, his hands clenched at his sides, and he stopped immediately in his tracks. The knot in his throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, and a muscle in his jaw twitched as he forced his lips into another smile.

“Does he think that the entire army is not enough protection for our beloved Empress?” Despite the lightness in Yuanrang’s voice, Wenyuan could hear the slight tremor in it; like the jumping pulse that beat against the thin skin of his throat. “Must he pull his greatest warrior away from his duties for that, as well?”

Wenyuan snorted. “You know as well as me that I am nowhere close to the greatest warrior in the vicinity,” he said, voice dry. Tilting his head towards the raised platform, he continued, “Even if I do not take into account His Majesty the Empress, there is still you to account for.”

Throwing his head back, Yuanrang laughed, loud and rich and deep. He placed a hand on his chest, and bowed deeply. “Your praise, Chancellor, fills my heart with joy.” He lifted his gaze, and his grin returned to its previous bright intensity. “Especially now that it is emptied by the Emperor’s low opinion of me.”

 _Lord Cao pleaded with me for your sake_ , Wenyuan almost said, but held his tongue because he knew that would be a lie. Lord Cao never did anything for any one person’s sake – the Empress is the exception, though not as frequently as it might seem – and, besides, such a heavy weight of such obligation did not fit Yuanrang’s broad shoulders. Shaking his head, Wenyuan asked, instead, “If the Empress has retaken his position as Grand Marshal, then why have you not left to tend to your other duties?”

Yuanrang’s smile widened, and he laughed again; a deep rumble that, Wenyuan knew, started from the base of his chest and worked its way upwards. He tipped his head up, squinting at the skies with one hand shading his eye. “You’ve arrived just in time to find the answer to that question.”

“Wha—” Wenyuan started, but he was interrupted with a shout.

“Pause!” When he turned back to the platform, the Empress was accompanied by another; a woman who was dressed in deep reds streaked with silver and green. One of his handmaidens, Wenyuan knew, and told himself – once again – that her face sparked no recognition whatsoever. “General Xiahou will now take over the rest of the drills.”

“Listen carefully, Chancellor,” Yuanrang said, speaking out of the corner of his mouth. “Listen to what the winds bring.”

As Wenyuan followed him down the path towards the platform, he concentrated. It was difficult to do so when every step sent another throb up his spine, but eventually, he realised what it was that Yuanrang wanted him to hear: An infant’s cries. No, two infants, shrieking in tandem.

The Empress had brought the princes with him, and now the children needed his attention. Wenyuan could not understand why his heart was roaring.

Lingering back as Yuanrang climbed the platform and bowed towards the Empress, he cast his eyes towards the soldiers. None of them were laughing; they only stood at attention, awaiting instructions. Some were even twitching, clearly itching somewhere that required a very deep and long scratch. None of them were watching as Yuanrang took the Empress’s place; none of their expressions changed as the Empress slapped Yuanrang on the shoulder even as he descended the platform, one hand removing the hairpin holding his hair back into its bun.

Well-shaped and deep-set dark eyes met his own. Wenyuan had never once been attracted to Guan Yunchang, but even the blind and the dumb would understand why even a man such as Lord Cao would be so enamoured by him. 

“If Mengde sent you here to scold me, you can tell him to dig himself down to the deepest level of hell,” the Empress muttered under his breath. He strode towards one of the main halls of the barracks, the glaive in his hand thumping quietly on the ground. His handmaiden trailed silently behind him, matching his every step.

Determinedly avoiding the woman’s flickering gaze, Wenyuan shrugged. “As I have already said a thousand times, Your Majesty,” he said, drawling out the title just slightly, “such messages should not be given to lowly ones like us to pass. Only the one for whom this new dynasty is made is allowed to speak to the Emperor who crafted it in that way.”

Snorting inelegantly, the Empress glanced back at him. “If not for the sake of harassing me back into inactivity, then what are you here for?”

At that moment, the winds changed. The Empress blinked, and Wenyuan ducked his head down. Walking had been a bad idea, he knew, for though he could push back the pleasure-sparks to the back of his mind, his body had always betrayed him dreadfully. He held his breath, waiting for the Empress’s vaunted honesty to send spikes between his ribs into his heart. But Guan Yunchang remained silent. He only lengthened his strides until they reached one of the side buildings of the barracks; one of the quarters built for officers. The quarters, Wenyuan realised, that Yuanrang had claimed for himself ten years ago, after the new dynasty had been established.

The hand on his wrist made him stumbled forward, nearly falling through the door as it opened. His eyes widened, and his lips parted in a gasp as the Empress pressed him against the wood, slamming it close, the sound of it loud and echoing in the confines of the small room.

“Your Majesty,” Wenyuan gritted out. “What are you—”

Despite being an omega, despite having given birth only _two months_ ago, the Empress was made of pure muscle, and the solidity pressed against Wenyuan’s entire body was nearly enough to make his eyes roll to the back of his head.

He should not want and he did not, but this desperate, coiling _need_ …

“Er-ge,” the woman’s soft voice, breaking through the encroaching haze in his head. “Have the ten years allowed you to forget?”

Cool air on his skin. Wenyuan shook his head hard, pressing a hand over his face. He was, to his deep shame, trembling. It had never felt like this. It had never hit him so hard that speaking had become an impossibility. 

“I don’t understand your meaning, sao-zi,” the Empress said. He sounded genuinely confused, not insulted like Wenyuan had half-expected. “What did I forget?”

His head was aching. It was almost too much effort to focus on the words past the piercing, hiccupping cries of the princes, suddenly so close to his ears.

“Even those who have a choice might find themselves bound,” the woman continued. “Especially when their bodies and hearts had desires that ran in contrary to the mind.”

 _Qilan_ , his betraying mind offered him. _Qilan, once-concubine of Liu Bei, who was supposed to have died with the rest of the clan_. 

Silence. The Empress sighed, and there were footsteps. Wenyuan took long, gasping breaths, but it was a mistake: the entire room _smelled_ of Yuanrang, his scent permeated the wood and cloth that surrounded him, and his entire body cried out, shrieking, for the man who was so close but whom he would not allow himself to touch.

Not right now. Not with this need strangling him and pressing breath out of his lungs.

He shoved his hand between his teeth, and bit down hard. Iron on his tongue. He kept his eyes closed even as he heard a high-pitched gasp coming from right beside him; when his oversensitive skin registered another’s warmth so close. He refused to open his eyes, focusing his dragging air through his twitching throat, as he heard an infant’s cries grow closer and then silent.

When he felt calm enough, when he had wrapped his hands around that knot of desire and shoved it so deep within his mind that it could not touch him, he opened his eyes.

There, sitting on the chair upon which Yuanrang would always lounge, the Empress held one of the princes to his chest. His robe was open and cotton overspilled the hands of the woman beside him. The infant’s tiny fist was wrapped around the end of the Empress’s long braid, tugging on it. The embroidery on the boy’s small sleeve was green; it was the younger twin, Cao Ju, for his older brother, Cao Shuo, was given silver.

Rubbing a hand over his face once more, Wenyuan straightened. He deliberately avoided the two pairs of eyes that looked upon him. A mistake: his gaze turned towards the glaive that had been laid on the ground by the Empress’s feet.

“Is it not dangerous,” he said, forcing words out of an aching throat, “to bring the princes to the training grounds when they are so young?”

The Empress’s gaze finally lifted from his. He turned towards the table – the same table where Yuanrang would place the tea whenever Wenyuan visited him – and picked up his hairpin. Even with the sunlight dimmed by the walls, the silver tassels and emeralds shone brilliantly.

“For war, my hair is bound,” Guan Yunchang said, his voice soft. “For the children, it is braided. For my husband, it is loose.” He tipped his head up, and his smiled was crooked. “But the strands remain the same.”

Forcing another breath through his teeth, Wenyuan tried to smile. “You have clearly spent long years with Lord Cao, Your Majesty,” he said, “for now you speak in metaphors as well.”

Shaking his head, the Empress sighed. He turned his attention back to the child, shifting him slightly upwards on his chest. The baby made a sound, opening his mouth and pulling back. Large, dark eyes – the same eyes as the man seated in Yuanrang’s chair – blinked before his mother nudged him back close, and he went back to feeding as one pale finger stroked over his smooth cheek.

The sight of him wrenched something from deep within Wenyuan’s chest; a wound that he thought had long closed. His knees felt weak, and he had to lean harder against the door to keep from falling.

“Lord Chancellor,” Guan Yunchang said, lifting his eyes to him again. “In the past years, Yuan Shao has been defeated, and so has Liu Bei.” His lips twisted, but he shook his head hard, as if dislodging the cobwebs of memories. “In these times of endless war, this is a lull between battles.”

“Even in times of peace there are duties to fulfil,” Wenyuan said. Those words came to him easily.

Levering his dark, intense stare at Wenyuan, the Empress tilted his head to the side. When Wenyuan did not reply, did not give in, he glanced to the woman. “Sao-zi, if you would?”

“Of course,” the woman said, and she bent her knees to the Empress before she left the room. The strips of cloth she left on the table; cotton spools that reminded far too sharply of how quickly the Empress could shift between his duties.

“There is naught anyone can say to change a man’s mind once it has been made,” Guan Yunchang said. “But, Lord Chancellor, do take heed: duty is a beautiful word, and does not deserve to be tainted with the stench of cowardice.” It was as if he had picked up the glaive from his feet, and driven it into Wenyuan’s chest. It was as if the blade had twisted to rip out his heart and simultaneously driven it into the wood of the door. 

“Sao-zi reminded me: Mengde could have sent you to me for one reason only,” the Empress continued. “He knew, best of all men, that Guan Yu was a lie.” His smile was thin. “Though it was with honour and pride that I once used to cover my own fear, Lord Chancellor.” 

His eyes glanced down to the child. The boy was waving his arms now, having finished feeding, and those pale fingers were gentle as he drew his braid from that small, clenched fist. “What duty do you have,” a ghost of a smile on his lips, mirthless, “when your lord himself has released you from it?” 

Wenyuan was left with not even the breath to gasp.

The woman returned, then. The baby in her arms was dressed in black, with silver threads twined on its sleeve. She bowed to the Empress, and the children exchanged hands. She shifted little Cao Ju up to her shoulders, and her hand began to pat upon his small back.

“My lord,” she said. Her eyes did not meet his, but instead were cast to the ground. “Forgive this lowly one’s interference, but she has herbs that will stave off the edge of the need if that is what you require.” Here: an escape. Wenyuan glanced at the Empress, but the man’s attention was fixed upon his fussing older son, rocking him gently in his arms to try to calm him down enough to feed.

“If it is my scent that distracts, Your Majesty,” he heard his own voice say, “then I will cloister myself in my office until this is over, and disturb no one.” 

Dark eyes turned once more towards him. Guan Yunchang’s mouth, Wenyuan realised, was ill-fitting to those cold, lopsided smiles. “There is naught anyone can say to change a man’s mind once it has been made,” the Empress repeated. “But heed this, too: my borrowing of General Xiahou’s quarters will not last long, and I will soon be back to relieve him of his duties once this child is fed.”

Guan Yunchang was kind enough to not fully voice those words, but Wenyuan could hear them, nonetheless: _When General Xiahou, too, has been released from his duties._  
  
“What of,” Wenyuan said, and he swallowed when his voice cracked, Yuanrang’s name echoing and echoing in his mind. “What of tomorrow, and the day after?”

“Do you truly believe,” Guan Yunchang said, and now every word was measured and slow, “that the duty of a serf is to never fulfil one’s desires?” He cocked his head in the direction of the training field. “Or that of the one he cares for?”

“Perhaps,” Wenyuan said, breathing through his teeth, “the word for that is neither duty nor devotion, but selfishness.” It was far more comfortable, after all, to hold on so tightly to duty that his hands bled.

Laughing, the Empress shook his head. “It is cowardice,” he said, and his smile softened at the edges. “Which, I suppose, is just as bad.”

“You would guilt me into giving in to this,” Wenyuan said, only half-accusing. Then, fourth time belated in the same day, he added, “Your Majesty.”

The twin in the woman’s arm made a sound, like he had choked on a bone. She giggled softly, and shifted him until he was lying in her arms instead of spread over her shoulders, and rubbed over his stomach. When the Empress reached out, the woman bent her knees, bringing the child close enough to be tickled by his mother.

“No, Lord Chancellor,” Guan Yunchang said without looking at him. “I’m only showing you all that you are needlessly keeping yourself from enjoying.”

“Is it truly needless?” Wenyuan asked helplessly.

Pulling away from playing with his youngest child, the Empress glanced at him. Then, leaning back, he hooked his toes beneath the staff of his resting glaive. With a single move, he kicked it upwards, and the caught it with his right hand. The baby pressed against his chest didn’t move. 

“Yes,” he said. As the woman stepped back, he swung the glaive around until it was held horizontally outwards, and then bent over and dropped it back down. Its weight reverberated through the wooden floorboards as it landed, casting tremors up Wenyuan’s bones. He straightened. “It is.”

His hand, white-knuckled; his arm, muscles sharply defined; the glaive with its deadly steel that had fed on so much blood that watered the soils of Wei. And, laid in the crook of his elbow: the prince.

Closing his eyes, Wenyuan finally allowed his knees to buckle. He slid down the door, and pressed his face against his knees. Such a display of weakness was unseemly, he knew, but it seemed appropriate in this moment.

“Lord Chancellor, I cannot call him in,” the Empress said, “if you block the doorway.”

Wenyuan threw his head back and laughed. Even to his own ears, the sound was hysterical, and trembling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cao Cao and Guan Yu’s twins: the elder one is 曹铄 Cao Shuo, meaning “to fuse, to melt, to shine,” also one of the characters for the term 销铄 xiao shuo, meaning “to eliminate;” the younger twin is named曹据 Cao Ju, meaning “to depend” and also “to seize” at the same time. Both of those names are, again, names of Cao Cao’s real children in history.
> 
> The forest around Zhanghe river is also a place that they would’ve had to cross if they were trying to move from Chang’an to Xu. I spent a lot of time on Google maps for those two lines.


	3. 君臣义, “the duty of sovereign, the duty of subject”

_The four hundred and sixth year of the Han Dynasty, midwinter  
Xu, the future Kingdom of Wei_

When Guan Yu was first captured, Wenyuan tracked Lord Cao’s eyes upon his form, and he suspected. When Lord Cao insisted that Guan Yu was allowed to leave despite the protestations of his generals, his eyes narrowed, and steel came into his spine. When Lord Cao stood in front of the Emperor and dared his own generals to try to kill him, testing their bone-deep loyalty to him against the blood-strong hold of the throne, Wenyuan sharpened his gaze further, and cast it outwards around him.

Six weeks ago, Guan Yu reached the gates of Xu. He planted his glaive into the ground at Lord Cao’s feet, and knelt next to it. He offered himself, and Lord Cao dressed him in his robes and flag while the Emperor and generals watched. 

Now Li Dian stood, trembling, at the end of his blade. His eyes were wide, his lips parted, and the sound of his harsh panting was nearly loud enough to drown out the shrieks and yells of men outside of the door. “A man like you, vaunted for his intelligence,” Wenyuan said, his own voice terribly steady. “A man like you, who has followed Lord Cao for nearly a decade, long before the Emperor had ever come into your sights.”

Behind him, the door finally lost its battle against its own weight. It crashed into the ground, forcing judders into the floorboards. Li Dian flinched. Wenyuan’s blade cut into his throat, a bead of red starting to well up on the polished steel.

“The mandate of heaven could not be disobeyed,” he said. His head tipped upwards, and the defiance in his eyes would be admirable if the reason was not so stupid. “Every person is born to his place in the world, General Zhang, and he must place his utmost efforts into fulfilling it.”

Unbidden, Wenyuan’s lips curved into a bitter smile. Though the words were different, the core was familiar: he had heard much of the same from many who had objected to his rise in rank over the past years. Even though he could understand them – from mere quartermaster to second-in-command in only eight years was an unheard-of feat – he would not allow for the insult against Lord Cao’s judgment. 

“Your beloved history will not paint you a martyr,” he noted, cocking his head to the side as Li Dian flinched again. “Later generations will see you only as a fool who doomed himself and his clans while clamouring to revive a corpse long rotted away.”

“Perhaps,” Li Dian said. He closed his eyes, and his smile was resigned. “Or we will be raised as the ideals of loyalty, for we refuse to lay down our blades even in times of overwhelming odds.”

There was, Wenyuan supposed, some possibility of that. Still, he laughed. The sound was tinged with metal from both the iron in his tongue and the steel in his bones. “If you wish to be made a martyr, General Li, then I will grant you your wish.” He drew his arm back, and brought his sword along with it.

He turned, and headed for the door even as the dull _thump_ of Li Dian’s head, then body, hitting the ground echoed and echoed in his ears.

Despite the chill, the air outside carried no freshness with it: thick with the scent of screams and the cries of blades seeking to be fed, all so heavy that Wenyuan did not think that he would ever smell metal again without thinking of death. Corpses covered the hard ground, faces frozen in the rictus of suffering made beautiful by the frost slow-forming on their lashes and lips.

Lord Cao had already made sure to send the servants and civilians away from the palace, and with them a word for the common people: stay inside, and do not take a step out of their doors until they could see a flag flying high above the tallest towers of the palace. Every single body, every single shriek, belonged to a soldier, many of those who had fought alongside those trying to kill them now.

Tipping his head up, he smiled. Above, beyond the bare branches, the skies were a clear, cloudless blue. An unprecedented rarity this late in winter. This was a historic day indeed.

Footsteps approached him. Wenyuan flicked blood and frost away from his blade, raising it again before he recognised the stout form running towards him: Xu Chu, one of the Generals whose warnings to Lord Cao about Guan Yu had been ignored but who remained loyal, nonetheless.

“General Li Dian is dead,” Wenyuan said as a greeting. “Colonels Cai Xun and Dong Meng are dead as well.”

“Pity,” Xu Chu said. He swung his heavy broadsword over his shoulder, and shook his head. “But that is not why I am here, General Zhang.” He took a deep breath, and let it out. “General Xiahou has succeeded in carving a way for Lord Cao to enter the imperial harem.” 

Wenyuan’s breath stopped in his throat. Here, outside: all was a distraction, fighting against the soldiers and officers who would go to the Emperor’s aid where the boy was hiding out in the buildings that housed his Empress, lower wives, and concubines. One of those concubines, Wenyuan knew, was Guan Yu himself.

Six weeks ago, the night of Guan Yu’s entrance into Xu, the Emperor sent out an imperial edict ordering Guan Yu to become his concubine. That was the last time Lord Cao had seen of the omega; the last straw that broke the thin thread of his loyalty to the Emperor, and rendered the boy completely useless to him.

No, not just useless, Wenyuan amended. A threat. _Dangerous_. 

His lord had wished to raise the army on that very night. Hands shaking with rage inside his sleeves, he had paced his office. The sounds of snapping brushes came, ghost-like, to Wenyuan’s ears, again and again, as he bid his lord to wait, to prepare better, such that he had a stronger chance to win.

“Why have you come to tell me this?” Wenyuan heard himself ask. His heart was roaring: Lord Cao had entered the harem. Perhaps upon this soon-approaching dusk, the sun would set upon the Han dynasty as well.

“General Xiahou has endured a grave injury,” Xu Chu said. “He needs to be relieved from his duties, and Lord Cao asked for you.” When Wenyuan turned to him, Xu Chu’s lips curved into a thin smile. “I am to take over the coordination of our men here, and to ensure that none escape who would raise mutiny against us again.” 

With those words, Wenyuan understood. Xu Chu had walked away the duties that would bring him glory – to stay beside Lord Cao while he forced an abdication from the current Emperor and thus usher in a new dynasty – to one that would easily be swept away, forgotten. He had come all of this way to yield this glory to _him_.

Shifting his sword to his left hand, Wenyuan clasped the stout Alpha’s arm with his own. “Thank you,” he said, a lump pressing hard against the back of his mouth. He was so used to side-along glances for his rank that such a favour left his head spinning with an inability to respond. “If we succeed, General, I will ensure that the historians know of your deeds, and raise you to the heights of glory that you deserve.”

Xu Chu roared with laughter, shaking his head. “First, we must succeed,” he said. His head turned, scanning the field of bodies behind him. “And, truth to be told, General, I find it difficult to think of legacies when so many of our brothers’ lives have been ended here, by our own hands.” 

There was nothing Wenyuan could say to that. He nodded just once instead, sharp and sudden, before he sheathed his blade.

The buildings that housed that harem were in the northeast, in the innermost part of the palace. Halfway to his destination, Wenyuan found a horse running in circles. He chased it and grabbed onto those flailing reins, pulling on the leather straps even as he threw himself up to the saddle. Gritting his teeth at the sudden shot of discomfort that shivered up his spine, he spurred the animal on.

Soldiers guarded the entrance of the red-roofed houses, all armed with Lord Cao’s name proudly displayed on their sleeves: a last-minute precaution to separate those who sided with Lord Cao against the Emperor, with the cloths readied only the night before. They stepped aside for Wenyuan without him saying a word, and he jumped off the horse and handed its reins to one of them before he ran into the gardens.

The bare branches of trees cast deep shadows upon more bodies. This time, Wenyuan ignored all of them. Xu Chu’s words echoed in his ears: _General Xiahou_ _has been grievously injured_. He bit hard into the inside of his cheek as he took the final turn. No one stood guard at the main building. Wenyuan cast his eyes around him, the silence terrible and devouring the sound of his footsteps upon the wooden stairs and floorboards. The door creaked as he pushed it open.

On the throne, meant for the Empress when receiving guests and visitors, was Lord Cao. His thighs were spread, and his arms cradled a figure who was barely recognisable beneath the too-large silk robes that had been draped over him. Wenyuan’s breath hitched. 

Gaunt cheeks, bruised eyes, stark bones straining against thin, vein-stained skin that peeked out of voluminous sleeves. The heavy swell of a stomach distorted from gentle to obscene by concave ribs that rose and fell so very shallowly. The white porcelain cup held so tremulously against his lips was nearly the same colour as his skin.

Six weeks since Guan Yu had stepped into the imperial harem, his back straight and shoulders stiff. For those six weeks, Wenyuan knew exactly the fate that awaited the warrior: already pregnant, he must be rid of the child, for it was not the Emperor’s get. For those six weeks, Wenyuan had drafted and redrafted condolences for Lord Cao and Guan Yu, trying to find words that would console them about the loss of a child.

Now he knew that none of his efforts were necessary. In those six weeks, Guan Yu had not eaten a single thing. Perhaps he had gone so far as to drink nothing, either. In obeying the Emperor’s edict, he had kept his honour; in keeping the child alive, he had fulfilled his duty.

At the price of that skeletal hand now grasping so weakly at Lord Cao’s sleeve. At the price of Lord Cao’s grief, writ so starkly all over his face as he held the man who should have been his Empress six weeks ago against his chest, his hold so gentle as if he was terrified of breaking him.

Breathing through his teeth, Wenyuan tore his eyes away. Then his throat seized again. There, standing on the spot where the lower wives would kneel, was Yuanrang. His clothes were torn, and the skin that showed through the tatters were slicked with blood. Even under the dim winter sunlight, he gleamed darkly.

His sword shone even sharper. The raw, unsheathed blade trembled minutely where it was held at the Emperor’s throat. The boy’s eyes were wide, fear making them glint even brighter than Li Dian’s had, right before he died. From Yuanrang came the only sound aside from Guan Yu’s harsh, rasping breaths: the quiet drips of his blood from where it poured from one side of his face. He lifted his head, and his nostrils flared when his eye met Wenyuan’s.

Eye: there was only one. The other was gone, and in its place was an empty socket barely covered by the heavy strands of hair that was plastered all over his cheek.

“Wenyuan.” The voice was not Yuanrang’s, but Lord Cao’s. But Wenyuan’s neck was frozen, and he could not turn away from that half-crazed gaze. “Years ago, I heard a story from Kuang-ling. Its governor, Li Teng, had an illness that no one could cure. Then a woman visited his estate, and the next anyone saw Li Teng, he was hale and healthy.”

Out of the corner of his eyes, Wenyuan saw Guan Yu’s shoulders shake. His lashes fluttered. Lord Cao’s eyes fell closed, and his lips pressed against Guan Yu’s temple, right at the edge of his hairline.

“That woman’s name is Hua Tuo,” Lord Cao continued. “Said to be the best physician in the land. Bring her to me.”

The denial that rose to his throat came from a place bone-deep, wrenching through his insides as it tried to escape. But Wenyuan swallowed it down, and turned away from Yuanrang. It was difficult to move his neck, but he forced himself to turn. When his chin dipped towards his chest, his knee went along with it. But the movement was still ungraceful: the sound of his bone hitting the wooden floorboard echoed around them.

“Yes, my lord,” he said. “I will find Hua Tuo, and I will bring her to you.”

“Tell her,” Lord Cao said. He no longer held the porcelain cup in his hand – it stood at the table now – but had gathered Guan Yu into both arms, his fingers stroking through the brittle strands of his hair. “The Empress of the Kingdom of Wei requires her aid.”

Dark threads fell to the ground. Each, Wenyuan knew, was another crime that would be heaped upon the boy-Emperor’s shoulders. 

“My horse will be swift, and my tongue will be silver,” he said. Rocking back on the balls of his feet, he stood again. “My lord, upon your shoulders will not be more grief. I will succeed.”

Lord Cao’s eyes turned to him. Even half-veiled by Guan Yu’s hair, even with his attention still mostly taken by the man who had so enamoured him, his gaze was sharper and darker than any winter night sky that Wenyuan had ever seen.

“I am sorry,” he said, voice soft. “This is already the third time.” More than the apology, the reminder shredded something deep inside him. Wenyuan closed his eyes again, but he could not stop himself from remembering. 

Five weeks ago, the drums of war had roared louder and louder in his mind, and he had gone to Yuanrang with his blade unsheathed. They had fought on the backyard of Yuanrang’s quarters, shielded from all eyes by the walls of buildings. Yuanrang had won that bout and, after, his hand closed around Wenyuan’s wrist. And Wenyuan had allowed him to pull him inside; allowed himself to be spread upon a bare army-styled cot.

Even now, he could taste Yuanrang on his tongue: indescribable except like the steam of heated metal tossed into cool waters. Even now, he could feel the consequences of giving in: the desire that coiled and twisted inside him.

“You honour me with your apologies,” Wenyuan said. “But, my lord, to fulfil my duty is my deepest wish.”

Yuanrang’s eye on him, heavy and stifling. Wenyuan refused to meet it. He fixed his eyes on Guan Yu instead, taking in the strong warrior who was forced into emaciation and weakness by honour and duty.

“A month. Please hold on for a month.” The slap of his fist against his palm rang out, and he bowed down deep. “Your Majesty.” Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the Emperor surge upwards, lips thinning. He saw, too, how Yuanrang slapped him on the cheek with the flat of his blade, and forced him back down to his knees. “This lowly one will not take more than that. He promises.”

At the entrance to the garden, the horse was waiting. Wenyuan nodded to the men, and took the reins. He threw himself onto the saddle, and rode outwards. He caught Xu Chu’s surprised glance as he sped past him, and did not give an explanation. There was no time. Just like there was no time for him to linger on the weight of Yuanrang’s gaze, wrapped like a warming scarf around his neck, protecting him from the winter chill that threatened to set frost upon his skin.

He headed south, and rode without concern for any rest except for his horse’s until he reached Kuang-ling, in Guangdong province. Three weeks and two days after he left, he returned to Xu with an old woman holding tight to his shoulders. By then, the twisting need had long dissipated, and once more he could breathe. 

In his absence, Lord Cao had been crowned Emperor, and orders were given that another throne, just as ornate as his, to be made. Wenyuan stood at the side as Hua Tuo knelt beside Guan Yu’s bed, feeling his pulse, and the constant trembling of his own hands stopped once the physician announced that the Empress could be returned to full health in a few months. A month later, the Crown Princess was born, screamingly healthy. Wenyuan told himself that he was relieved, and happy. The joy of his lord was surely enough for him.

But Yuanrang now wore an eyepatch, the leather hidden by a loose sheaf of hair that fell to his cheek, and the remaining eye now refused to turn to him. Wenyuan, hands empty once he had delivered the physician, had nothing left to give.

***

_The tenth year of the Cao Dynasty, early spring  
Xu, the Kingdom of Wei_

By the time the Empress, his handmaiden, and the princes were making to leave, Wenyuan managed to find the strength to bow to herald their exit. But all of the steel in his spine melted into nothingness as the man with so much of it closed the door behind him. It took all of his effort for him to walk instead of crawl to the bedroom when every step set tremors shaking up from his heels to settle in between his hips.

Paltry and tattered as his pride might be, he still held onto it with gritted teeth. Too much of it had already been lost in these past few years.

It was difficult to tell the passing of time when every other moment sent hot flashes scattering through his vision. Wenyuan only knew that his face was pressed into the sheets of Yuanrang’s bed, breathing in the scent of heated steel that lingered in the silk, when he heard the door opening again.

He pushed himself to his feet, and stumbled to the doorway. Yuanrang stood there, his back to him as he unhooked the straps holding his twin swords to his back. The leather-covered sheaths were stitched with mirrored images of massive oak trees, the red threads forming the flame-like leaves that caught the sunlight as it streamed in in.

“I can’t turn around until I know that you truly want this,” Yuanrang said. His voice was steady, but the tremulous note beneath still rang harsh and deep in Wenyuan’s sharp ears. “Not until I hear it from your lips.”

Closing his eyes, Wenyuan allowed himself to lean one shoulder against the doorway. The sideways tilt of his body rubbed his thighs together, and he heard his own breath hitch in tandem with Yuanrang. “How long have I made you wait?” he asked.

“It has been eighteen years since we first met,” Yuanrang said. Hands splayed against the wall in front of him, he tipped his head back. “Fourteen since I first knew that I wanted you.”

“In all those years, you could have chosen plenty of others,” Wenyuan said, voice soft.

Yuanrang’s eye opened. His smile was lopsided as he looked at him upside down. “In all those years,” he echoed, “I have not regretted my choice.” 

“Why?” 

“What knows a man of the desires of his own heart?” Yuanrang asked. His hands on the wall were slowly curling inwards, nails digging into and scraping over the wood. “What knows a man of the colours of the threads that wrap around his form?” He tilted his head to the side. “Or when it is too late, and he has grown too comfortable to the pain of the cuts?” 

“I have not meant to trap you,” Wenyuan said, softer now. _I have not meant to hurt you._ “You know that.”

“That was not my meaning,” Yuanrang shook his head. “I have trapped _myself_ , Lord Chancellor,” the title sent a cold shudder down Wenyuan’s spine, “with my desire for you. It has twined around me so tightly that I find it difficult to even move my neck. How, then, could I have turned my gaze to anyone else?”

Now it was Wenyuan’s turn to close his eyes. His breath escaped him in a shuddering gust. _Habit_ , Lord Cao had said. His nails sank into his elbow as he laughed, shoulders shaking.

“General,” he said, voice tremulous. “I know not how to give in.”

“Would you have me force you, now?”

Chin hitting his chest, Wenyuan shook his head. “No,” he said. “You do not deserve to have your honour besmirched like this.”

Footsteps. Wenyuan shook like a lone leaf in howling winds as rough fingers took hold of his chin, tilting his head up. Throat exposed, his pulse roared in his ears. “Then ask me,” Yuanrang said, the rumble of his voice so close that Wenyuan could breathe it in, “using my name.”

“Yuanrang.” Was that truly his own voice, so thick with need, so shivery with fear? “Yuanrang, please.”

Fingers hovered above his cheek. Wenyuan’s breath hitched as they drew downwards, tracing the line of his jaw, scraping over the rough hairs of his beard. He felt a sob rising up his throat as a thumb pressed against his pulse and stroked downwards, skimming over the knot in his throat to settle in the hollow. His eyes had fluttered back closed, when he did not know, and though there were many a times that Yuanrang had touched him like this, the desire twisting and twisting in his belly made every touch on his skin oversensitive.

“What is it you want?” Yuanrang asked. Such cruel words in such a gentle voice.

“Make me give in,” Wenyuan murmured, words slurring together. “Please.” 

“Give in?” Yuanrang pressed.

“To you,” Wenyuan returned. A ragged cry escaped him as Yuanrang spread his fingers, scraping his nails over his throat before slipping past the collar of his robes to the old bruises on the join between neck and shoulder. “For you.” 

“How?” That hand was sliding into the folds of his robes, now, finding the ties and tugging them loose. Warm and battle-roughened, he slid them over Wenyuan’s skin, pausing at his nipples to nudge against them.

“Take me,” Wenyuan said, barely cognizant of what he was saying. “Take me, take me, please, Yuanrang.”

Lips against his temple. Wenyuan arched as Yuanrang’s other hand splayed upon the small of his back. He shuddered as his robes slipped off his shoulders to pool as his feet. Now, without the stifling heaviness of silk, he could smell the scent of his own desire, twining around his own tremulous throat. “How?” Yuanrang repeated. Both hands were loosening Wenyuan’s under-robes, now, spreading them open. Nails skittering over Wenyuan’s belly, so light over the tight muscles before they scraped down to his hipbones that jutted, sharp, from his skin.

He knew what Yuanrang wanted; knew that he deserved the words, more than deserved them. Still a flush was creeping up his skin, and he licked his lips again.

“Knot me,” he whispered. A hand splayed upon his belly and his breath stuttered in his throat. “Tie me.”

Somehow, he found the strength to open his eyes, and he shuddered hard, all over, when Yuanrang’s storm-dark eye met his. He raised one tremulous hand, and brushed the tips of his fingers over the edge of that eyepatch. He smiled. “I have always been yours,” he said. There had been no one before this man, and there would be none after him. “Make me yours.”

A hand slid beneath the tight-tied line of his smallclothes. Wenyuan’s eyes flew open when fingers circled the head of his cock, smearing pre-come down his shaft. His head smacked hard against the doorframe when the tips of those fingers slid, gently, over his balls before separating them.

“Yuanrang,” he gasped, and his hands scrabbled upon broad shoulders as he felt them press _inside_.

“Ten years since the first time you allowed me into your bed,” Yuanrang said, and, oh, his voice was full of wonder. “And I have never felt you this _wet_.”

Wenyuan’s words were escaping him. He heard his throat give a whine, tight and high, as Yuanrang pushed one finger all the way inside. He squeezed his eyes shut as a thumb stroked his balls, nudging them even further apart, before it rubbed, light, over the rim of his hole.

“Fourteen years since I knew that I could bring you pleasure thus,” Yuanrang said, and his voice was shaking and shaking with each word breathed into Wenyuan’s hair. “In all those fourteen years, I have dreamed of doing this to you in sight of everyone.” His fingers slammed inside, and twisted. Wenyuan heard his own voice cry out, as if from far away. The sound resonated in the room, pounding in his ears.

“In front of that boy who once called himself Emperor,” Yuanrang continued, punctuating every word with his thumb making slow circles amidst Wenyuan’s folds. “In front of my kinsman. In front of all those generals, both those who would eventually die by our blades and those who still stood by our sides.” The scent of the forest. The stench of blood and death. Yuanrang at the back of his eyes, his face smeared with blood. Yuanrang in front of him, his hand steady upon Wenyuan’s back as he fucked him with his fingers, his lips drawn backwards to show his teeth.

“I wanted you to,” Wenyuan managed to say, pants mangling his words into pieces. “Right there, in front of all eyes. Your name was in my head, though I had never tasted it on my tongue.”

“Which name?” Yuanrang demanded. He rocked his fingers inside harder, forcing another cry out of Wenyuan’s throat. “Which name, Wenyuan?”

His name, on Yuanrang’s tongue. Shredded to pieces by his growl. “Yuanrang,” he gasped out, and arched as those fingers drew out to curl around his cock, smearing the slick of his hole over the hard length before coating his filling knot. “Yuanrang, Yuanrang, _Yuanrang_!”

With another snarl, Yuanrang’s hand left his back. Wenyuan’s arms flailed in the air before settling around those strong shoulders, and he made a high-pitched, hitching noise as Yuanrang hefted him up with one hand on his hip. The corded muscles between the bones of his wrist jumped, and Wenyuan’s head spun at the show of strength as Yuanrang pinned him to the wall.

“I’ve trained myself, Wenyuan, to not look upon you in battle,” Yuanrang continued. His fingers were thrusting steadily, now, the nail of his thumb flicking at his knot, over and over. “Every glance I took of your ferocity reminds me of my desire.” Three fingers shoved inside him, and twisted. Wenyuan’s hips lifted away from the wall upon which he was pinned, his throat letting loose a loud, incoherent cry. 

The hand on his thigh shifted, and splayed upon his belly. Yuanrang’s lips on his ear, his voice no more than a rasping growl: “You would look so much more beautiful wielding that blade when you’re carrying my child.”

Wenyuan slammed his head backwards. Years, over a decade, of habit spiralling out of his hands as the image crafted by Yuanrang’s voice coalesced in his mind. He could not even cry out; could only shake and shake in the arm that held him close, in the fingers that invaded him to give him pleasure. 

“All these years, I’ve wanted you to be mine.” Yuanrang’s teeth scraped over Wenyuan’s neck and shoulders. “You’ve allowed me into your bed. You’ve allowed me to take you. But only for the moment. Only temporary, until I have to let you go again.”

Pulling his arms back, Wenyuan opened his eyes. He cupped Yuanrang’s face with both hands, and though his smile was tremulous, he hoped his sincerity showed through. “Then make me yours,” he said. He brushed his thumb over the edges of Yuanrang’s widening eye, and shifted his thighs, sliding one shakily over a hip as he scraped his fingers down that broad chest, all the way downwards until he could close his hands over the bulge pressing against his thin cotton robe.

“Fourteen years, and no more than that,” he said, and rubbed at Yuanrang’s knot through the cloth.

His Alpha dropped his head backwards, lone eye falling shut. “You _mean_ it,” he rasped out.

Leaning in, Wenyuan scraped his teeth over the column of that long, exposed throat. “Yes.”

Yuanrang’s fingers slid out of him. Slick over the calluses on his hips. Wenyuan’s eyes went wide as Yuanrang pressed even closer, inches between their chests disappearing as Yuanrang bracketed him with his own body. His legs snapped even wider by instinct, toes curling in a desperate and futile attempt for balance even as he brushed his fingers over that smooth jaw.

“The bed,” he pointed out, “is right over there.”

Yuanrang laughed. He leaned their foreheads together, settling Wenyuan’s legs around him before he reached for the ties of his robes.

“It is too far,” he said. “And besides…” Cloth fell open, and Wenyuan felt the cotton of Yuanrang’s smallclothes against the back of his thighs as the knots fell apart. “I am strong enough to carry your weight.” His lips brushed Wenyuan’s, gentle and brief. His gaze like a lightning storm flashing across the night skies. “Hold on tight.”

Wenyuan wrapped his arms around those shoulders again. As he did, Yuanrang steadied him once more with a hand on his back, and the other over his hip. His lips pressed gently over his.

Then he pressed inside.

Not once in all of his years had Wenyuan allowed this. Not during his heat. Not when desire coiling tight between his hips, and slick coated the inside of his thighs despite his best attempts to pull away. He bowed forward, pressing his mouth against Yuanrang’s shoulder, trying to breathe. Then he couldn’t, _couldn’t_ , because Yuanrang was rocking deeper in, forcing his knot flush against Wenyuan’s folds, half-rough skin over his balls. Pleasure, so much of it, from every part of him. Flames upon flames licking upon his wood-nerves, he would surely become nothing but ashes after this—

Yuanrang drew back, the head of his cock nudging against Wenyuan’s rim. Then he slammed back in, hard enough for the sound of flesh slapping against flesh to echo. Wenyuan snapped his head back.

And he screamed.


	4. 名俱扬, “to raise the family reputation”

_The tenth year of the Cao Dynasty, early spring  
Xu, the Kingdom of Wei_

Slowly, the white stars retreated. But the heavy grey clouds remained, snaking across his vision. Wenyuan panted, back aching as he bowed forward. Salt surrounded him, thick and lingering, nearly enough to obscure the smoky, burning metal that was embedded into Yuanrang’s skin.

Nearly decades since he first brought in his crates of steel, Yuanrang still smelled of a furnace burning. Wenyuan squeezed his eyes shut, gulping air down into his smoke-choked lungs. He shuddered helplessly when he felt hilt-callused fingers stroking down his spine, nudging at the space between the knobs.

“Do you think the soldiers heard you?” Yuanrang murmured. His breath, wet, ghosted over the curved of Wenyuan’s ear. “When you screamed my name?”

Despite his best efforts, Wenyuan heard a high-pitched, half-sobbing noise escaped his raw throat. He swallowed, but all he could taste was the salt of Yuanrang’s sweat, as if his heavy cock invading him had seeped into his nerves and twined around his senses. “Please don’t make me think about that,” he said. His eyes fell shut, and he rested his forehead against the curve of one broad shoulder. “They need to concentrate on their training.”

“It is mealtime, right now,” Yuanrang continued as if he hadn’t heard. “They usually talk loudly while eating, so they likely wouldn’t have heard you.” He rocked his hips up slightly, turning the hard-fought evenness of Wenyuan’s breath back into stutters. “I should try harder, don’t you think?”

“Wait,” Wenyuan said, eyes going wide. But his words spilled out of him like water from trembling hands when Yuanrang’s fingers released his hip, nail scraping over his skin before he nudged against his balls. Wenyuan’s breath hitched, and he bit his lip hard when those fingers scraped upwards, calluses stroking over the head of his cock. “Yuanrang,” Wenyuan managed, voice strangled. “What are you—”

“Shh,” Yuanrang said. He nosed Wenyuan’s hair, peppering kisses at the mussed strands. His nail slipped into the slit of Wenyuan’s cock, and though it was blunt, there was still some sharpness remaining that ripped a gasp out of Wenyuan’s lungs. “Let me do this. Let me enjoy you, fully.”

“Have I truly left you so wanting?” Wenyuan asked. He raked his nails down Yuanrang’s arms, curving down from his elbows to the forearms to feel the throb of blood beneath the slightly-furred skin. “I have not denied you the touch of my body for these past years.”

“You have not.” Yuanrang’s nod rubbed his smooth cheek over Wenyuan’s beard, and he laughed quietly as his fingers curled around Wenyuan’s cock, stroking. “But, my dear Chancellor, this is something else entirely.”

“Is it?” Wenyuan said, cracking one eye open.

“Mm,” Yuanrang said. His hand moved down again, and now his fingertips nudged at Wenyuan’s folds, pressing lightly against the place where they were joined. When Wenyuan’s breath hitched once more in his throat, he smiled, and scraped his teeth over the curve of a cheek. “Like here. The heat has made you so wet that I’m in danger of slipping out even when buried in so deep.”

Words twisted into such filth. Wenyuan’s eyes slipped close again, and he let out a ragged cry when Yuanrang wedged his fingers inside, stretching him even wider. His teeth sunk immediately into his lip, but Yuanrang’s mouth was already pressing against his, sucking lightly and drawing it back out even as he started thrusting his fingers slowly inside him. Never fully pulling out, never sinking in entirely.

Teasing. Dizzying. Flickers of flames that sent the ashes of him spinning aimlessly in the air. 

“I almost don’t want to fuck you properly,” Yuanrang said. His voice was still so steady even when every other word was broken by the rasp of his exhales. “I want to spend hours here, just like this. Feeling how your body has changed, how your reaction has changed, when you’re in the midst of heat.”

His thumb pushed against the slow-growing knot. “Like here,” he continued. “I’ve never seen it grow. I’ve never felt you shake like this,” a flick of nail against the very base, where the skin was stretched thin, “when I touch you here.”

“Yuanrang,” Wenyuan breathed out. “I—” But all else he wished to say lodged deep in his throat, unmoving, when Yuanrang rocked up to him again.

“You’ve always been so quiet when I took you,” Yuanrang said. Even through the tide of pleasure that lapped at his nerves, Wenyuan could hear the wistfulness in his voice. “Always so aware of propriety. Even if the whole camp, the whole city, knew what we were doing, you were always so determined to give them no sign.”

“Why—” Wenyuan tried to ask, but jerked his head to the side with an aborted cry when Yuanrang's palm wrapped around him, his strokes speeding up.

“Is it really such a strange thing?” Yuanrang asked. His lips dragged over Wenyuan’s jaw before teeth nipped at his ear. “To wish for everyone to know my fortune in having you by my side.”

“Must the air ring out with my voice just to satisfy your pride?” Wenyuan threw back.

“Pride?” Yuanrang chuckled. “Yes, I must admit: my pride is dear to me, and very frequently on my tongue. But this…”

At that moment, he shifted, hands moving to Wenyuan’s waist. Wenyuan bit back a gasp as he was shoved further up the wall, and Yuanrang’s cock buried ever deeper inside him, twitching against his clenching insides. His fingers gripped tighter before letting go.

“This is my _selfishness_ ,” Yuanrang sighed against his cheek, “for I wish for everyone to know that you belong to me.” Then, before Wenyuan could piece together the broken words in his mind for a reply, he said, again, “Hold on tight to me.”

Wenyuan could barely scramble enough cognizance to tighten his thighs above those slim hips, gripping onto the muscles of the strong waist. He parted his lips to ask what Yuanrang was planning when— The flick of nails over one nipple. His eyes went wide but he could see nothing, _nothing_ , as Yuanrang rolled the pebbled nub between his fingers. When Yuanrang squeezed, Wenyuan’s entire back arched, a jolt of arousal rushing up his spine, quick like a blacksmith’s hammer over heated steel. 

“Then you should,” he heard himself say, stuttering, “you should take me.”

“But I am,” Yuanrang said. His smile seared heat on Wenyuan’s neck. “I am, my dear Chancellor.”

“Don’t—” _Don’t remind me of my station,_ Wenyuan wanted to say, but there were no words left in him, no world left outside of him. Only Yuanrang’s rolling hips as he thrust into him. Only those familiar fingers on his nipples. Only the feel of his thighs getting filthy as slick dripped from between his folds, sliding down Yuanrang’s cock and knot to smear all over his skin. 

“ _Please_.” The plea wrenched out of his throat as his hands ran down Yuanrang’s chest, nails carding over his sparse hairs. “Please, please.”

A soft hum into his hair. One hand closing around his waist again, holding him steady against his wall as Yuanrang’s cock inside him drew out until only the tip remained. More slick dripped from him, some hitting the wooden floor beneath them. Wenyuan let out a sobbing breath, utterly incoherent, as Yuanrang pushed back inside with an obscenely wet slurping noise that rang and rang in his ears.

“Here,” Yuanrang said. His fingers, slick-stained, closed around Wenyuan’s wrist, pulling his hand away from his chest. Wenyuan gasped again, helplessly wanting, as Yuanrang drew him down, brushing the tip of his fingers where they were joined, where he was stretched wide open by the thick length pressed inside him. “Can you feel that?”

Wenyuan’s head dropped back against the wall. His eyes had fallen close, and he did not think he could open them again. “Please,” he repeated.

“How am I to keep a tight grip on my pride when I can give you this?” Yuanrang said, voice rumbling against his jaw. Wenyuan trembled, just once, as he felt his fingers being folded, tangling together with Yuanrang’s. “How can I not valorise selfishness, when this is my reward?”

Fingers wedging inside him. His own fingers, sliding and slipping against the slick. Yuanrang’s longer, thicker fingers, rubbing against the edges of Wenyuan’s hole, nudging light against the rim of his walls. “When you allow me to bring you to a stage of such need?” 

“Please,” Wenyuan said again. He shook his head hard, breath caught into a sobbing hitch, when Yuanrang’s fingers pushed his own deeper inside himself. “Please. _Please_.”

“You allow me this,” Yuanrang continued. His other hand stroked over Wenyuan’s thighs, smearing his slick all over his skin. Wenyuan arched again, a breathless cry escaping, when that hand wrapped around his cock and started to stroke. “You allow me to see you like this.” Bending forward, Wenyuan buried his face into Yuanrang’s shoulder. The hand still trapped inside himself was trying to shake, and each shudder of pleasure brought even more of it, wave upon wave that crashed upon him. He was— he was—

“Come for me,” Yuanrang said. “Please.”

Another flick of the nail, this time right against where the skin folded over the head of Wenyuan’s cock. Light, so light, but Wenyuan had felt lightning rushing through his nerves for so long, and Yuanrang’s touch was the final rod.

He curved forward, muffling his mouth against Yuanrang’s shoulder. His back rubbed hard against the wood of the wall, but the brief sparks of pain was wood that fed the flames of pleasure, and Wenyuan squeezed his eyes shut as he fell over the edge. A wet spurt hit his stomach, and he shouted again, helplessly, as Yuanrang’s fingers stroked his length over and over again.

Incoherent pleas wrenched out of his throat. His hands flailed in the air before finding Yuanrang’s shoulders again, nails sinking him as he was pressed harder against the wall. His toes curled, digging into Yuanrang’s ass, as the man lifted him up with both hands before pulling out, just so slightly. 

“I have been waiting,” Yuanrang murmured, “for you to find the words to allow me.”

Words. He wanted words. Wenyuan barely had voice, barely had breath, for Yuanrang was fucking him steadily now, and every pull of his cock out of him sent Wenyuan’s insides clenching frenzied around nothing. The tides of his orgasm still lapped at him, but the waters did not quench the fires but instead spread the lightning in his nerves inside, leaving him shaking and wanting. Leaving him _needing_.

“Take me,” he found somehow. “Please, please. Take me.”

“That,” Yuanrang said, and his voice was still so steady that it made Wenyuan’s head spin, “you have already allowed me.”

Clenching his jaw, Wenyuan shook his head hard. He forced his eyes open, but his vision was so blurred that it was useless, so he closed them again.

“How do you expect me to speak?” he gritted out. “How do you expect me to think like this?”

Yuanrang laughed, shaky but with the mirth clearly ringing. He pressed a kiss against Wenyuan’s lips, and breathed his next words into his lungs: “If you could fight while in throes of heat for so many years, my dear Chancellor, then surely this is no impossibility.”

“No, I,” Wenyuan said, and the rest of his protest was lost in a sharp cry as Yuanrang slammed into him, harder than before. His eyes rolled back, and he arched hard as he felt the broad thickness of a knot grind against his folds, so terribly close to the rim of his hole that his insides twitched with the need for it. “I, I—”

“Give me the words that will allow me,” Yuanrang said. His voice was lower, now, barely more than a tattered growl. “Give me the eloquence and poise that you hold onto so tightly.”

Helplessly, Wenyuan sobbed. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes as he bent forward again, holding onto Yuanrang as tightly as he could. He could hear the rattling of the wall with every thrust, but his mind was fixed so entirely on the feel of Yuanrang moving inside him. With every circle the head of that cock made against his rim. He didn’t know what it was that Yuanrang wanted. He was wood and the furnace of Yuanrang’s body heat had burnt him to ash, leaving him scrambling for some solidity amidst the whipping winds that sent him scattering.

“Forgive me,” Yuanrang whispered. His hand, so gently, down Wenyuan’s back, counting the knobs of his spine, the curves of his ribs. “But for fourteen years you have denied me this, and even with your body in my hands… Without your words, it seems so fleeting.”

Oh. _Oh_. Wenyuan’s breath hitched.

Pulling back, he forced his eyes open, and scrubbed his wrist over them. When his vision cleared, he saw Yuanrang; saw this man who had waited for him so patiently, who had never turned his gaze towards anyone else despite all that Wenyuan had denied him. This man, who had stood by his side and taken whatever it was that Wenyuan was willing to give, and never asked once for anything more no matter how much he surely deserved it.

Fingers trembling, Wenyuan cupped those smooth cheeks. He drew his thumb along the curves of them, his breath stuttering as Yuanrang’s hips slowed to rocking against his own.

“You have been waiting for so long,” he whispered. Leaning in, he pressed his mouth against Yuanrang’s temple, tasting salt, before he moved down to brush his lips over the eye to let the bitterness of tears gather on his tongue. Then he pulled back. Lips curving into a smile, he drew his thumbs over Yuanrang’s mouth. He said:

“Give me your child, Xiahou Yuanrang.” He caught the hitch of Yuanrang’s breath with a hand upon his throat. “Write my name into your family’s registry, and make me yours entirely.” Yuanrang stared at him, and Wenyuan met his gaze. He knew not where the words came from; knew not whether it came from, his heart or the insides that twitched around Yuanrang’s cock. But he knew that, at least for now, he meant them.

Hand sliding over the side of Wenyuan’s face, Yuanrang reached out. His fingers loosened the cloth tie that kept Wenyuan’s hair back, and the strands fell them around them. Thus covered, Wenyuan closed his eyes, and he allowed himself to be drawn in as Yuanrang cupped his face and kissed him.

“Do not regret this,” he said, voice low but strong. “You hold to your duty so tightly, Wenyuan, so do not regret this when your hands are once more wrapped around it.”

Before Wenyuan could speak, could protest, he was being lifted away from the wall. He blinked just once before he surged forward, arms wrapping around Yuanrang’s neck, holding on tight. Every step sent another jolt of flash-lightning up Wenyuan’s spine as Yuanrang’s cock drove just slightly deeper inside him. He was gasping and breathless again by the time Yuanrang laid him down on the bed, and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut again when he felt Yuanrang climb on beside him, for his heavy knot pressed so hard against his folds that he could feel his insides twitching to spread further open.

“Please,” he said again. “Take me.”

“Wenyuan.” His name forged into pure desire by Yuanrang’s lips. “Wenyuan. Wenyuan. Mine.”

“Yours,” Wenyuan nodded. He spread his legs open, and held them even wider with his fingers digging into the back of his knees. Yuanrang, pressed so close, buried deep inside, shuddered against him. “ _Yours_.” Yuanrang’s hands on his face, drawing him into a kiss. Wenyuan arched upwards, and his legs wrapped around Yuanrang’s neck, heels digging into his ribs. His body jerked as the bamboo mats of the bed juddered from Yuanrang’s planted fists. He took a deep breath—

And promptly lost it when Yuanrang thrust into him so hard that he slid up the bed. Wenyuan’s eyes flew open, and his hands clawed at Yuanrang’s arms, at his back, as Yuanrang took him—no, as he _fucked_ him, slamming inside him with the intention to use, to take, to claim.

His own voice was echoing in the room around him; soft, gasping moans climbing higher and higher in pitch. Need made into sound, so loud, but there was no shame left inside of him. Only of the tangles of his insides being released with every press of Yuanrang’s knot against the rim of his hole.

“ _Mine_ ,” Yuanrang snarled into his ear. His teeth grazed the curve of it, and Wenyuan could barely nod before he was scrambling at the sheets, nails scrabbling over the bamboo underneath as Yuanrang shoved two fingers inside him, spreading him wider. His insides screamed from the flames crawling under his skin, licking at his nerves.

“Yes,” Wenyuan forced out, and he cried out, loud and sharp and incoherently, when Yuanrang’s fingers curled, twisted, even as he thrust in hard enough to make the bed creak. He shook his head from side to side, overwhelmed, but even that relief was snatched away from him when Yuanrang’s other hand wrapped around his cock, already hard again, before he started to stroke.

Wenyuan’s eyes flew open, but he saw nothing. There was only pleasure, so much of it. He stood amidst a lightning storm, and every slam of Yuanrang’s cock inside, every twist of his hand, was another jolt that set him shaking. He was splintering, breaking apart—

The world slowed, narrowed. Wenyuan heard only his own gasping whines and Yuanrang’s snarling growls. Words coalesced at the back of his mind, piecing together without his demands. He had forgotten: a furnace was powered by the flames of wood burning, and any steel thrust within was surrounded by a flurry of ash.

Then, just as quickly as the thoughts came, they escaped from him again as Yuanrang slammed into him hard enough for his fully-expanded knot to wedge itself halfway inside. Wenyuan threw his body upwards, clinging tightly to Yuanrang, as a scream wrenching itself out of his throat. Yuanrang kissed him, hard, but Wenyuan could do nothing to return it, could only drag in breath as Yuanrang’s hand closed around his hip and pulled out almost entirely.

“Let me,” Yuanrang said. Wenyuan did not, could not, know what he meant, but Yuanrang was pulling him up, dragging him even closer until their hips were flush together, and Wenyuan was practically in his lap. Then he bent over, and his fingers were so gentle as they traced the curve of Wenyuan’s cheeks.

“If I must wait eighteen years more,” Yuanrang whispered against his lips, “this will still be worth it.”

His fingers pulled out. Then, before Wenyuan could catch a breath, he gave a single thrust, hard enough that the aftershocks juddered through Wenyuan’s bones. His knot slammed against Wenyuan’s folds, but, this time, he was stretched enough, wanting enough, that his insides stretched further open. Weight inside him. Fire, flames, lightning. Wenyuan’s eyes were open but he was blind, entirely blind, and he threw himself forward, forehead smacking against Yunchang’s shoulder as he felt himself clench down against that weight inside, as he felt Yuanrang’s cock swell as he spilled deep inside him.

“ _Mine_.” 

The growl snaked through his bones, white stars taking over his voice again. Wenyuan’s eyes rolled back, but Yuanrang was not finished with him yet. His hand was on Wenyuan’s cock again, stroking over his length even harder, faster, flicking his nail over the underside of the head even as his other hand squeezed around his knot—

“Yours, yours—” Teeth on the join of his neck and shoulders, sinking in. Light flashed bright across his eyes. 

Wenyuan came again, the second time for as many seconds, he could hear his own voice, loud and resonant, reverberating through the room:

“ _Yours_!”

***

_The fourth year of the Cao Dynasty, late summer  
Ye, the Kingdom of Wei_

Yuan Shao was a great Lord, his legacy scored into history so deeply that, two years after his death, his children still remained united under his banner, fighting alongside each other in his name without scattering like so many others had. Still, they were eventually defeated, all three of them fleeing into the winds. The armies of Cao, then, fell upon the city of Ye, and claimed it in the name of the Kingdom of Wei.

As great a strategist and tactician as Yuan Shao had been, Wenyuan thought, he had no talent for administration, or even understanding the standards of such a thing. The farmlands on the outskirts of the city had badly used by outdated techniques and equipment that it was no wonder that the farmers as well as the city peoples were all on the verge of starvation. Not to mention that many of the buildings were already falling apart, wood rotting from the inside, and there weren’t even any forests left nearby. Most, Wenyuan heard, had been chopped down to make wood for arrowheads and shields.

Secluded in his own hastily-claimed quarters in the palace of Ye, Wenyuan allowed himself to curse Yuan Yi, Yuan Shao’s cousin. For a man supposedly renown known for his prowess as an administrator, he had left the basic problems of feeding and housing the people undone. 

A knock on the door. Wenyuan lifted his head, and squinted when his eyes landed straight upon the uncovered window to his right. The light that poured in had turned red; it was already sunset, and he had been here for hours. Raising a hand, he made to rub at his eyes before he realised that there were ink stains all over his sleeves and skin. 

“Please enter,” he sighed out instead. Unlike Lord Cao, the Empress still knocked before entering. 

The door slid open, wood thumping against wood. Wenyuan, his head already bowed over the papers again, picked up his brush. “More rice and wheat must be brought from Xu for the people to be fed – even with the autumn harvest, they will not be able to survive the winter without aid. If you can convince Lord Cao that more brocade from Szechuan would be unnecessary, it would be a great boon to our coffers, because we must bring in wood from the surrounding regions as well for repairs.”

There was no answer. Wenyuan blinked. “Your Maj—?” 

It was not Guan Yunchang who stood in front of him. Instead, General Xiahou stood there, his back to Wenyuan and his hand still on the doorframe. “Envoys have been sent both to Handan up north and Jining in the southeast. Handan for wood in their forests, and Jining for whatever stores of provisions they have.” 

Like in the past four years, the sound of that familiar deep rumble sent shivers down Wenyuan’s spine. Like in the past four years, he squashed that down immediately. He looked at his hands, and realised he was holding too tightly to his brush. He put it back into the stand, and refused to react to the sound of bamboo rattling against wood.

“By your orders, General?” he asked instead. His voice was, thankfully, steady.

“I have studied the maps of this area my whole life, General, and I know this area well enough to be of some aid.” The General turned his head and looked at Wenyuan without turning around entirely. “Even a blind man can hear the groans of starving beggars on the streets. Even the deaf could see the termites crawling amidst the wood. Do you believe me to be worse than those men?”

“Of course not,” Wenyuan murmured, forcing the words out of the fist clenching around his lungs. “I do not mean to insult you to imply otherwise.”

Silence fell over them, heavy and stifling. There was ink smeared all over his fingers. Wenyuan resisted the urge to rub them together, instead wracking his mind for something to say. It had been four years since they had spoken to each other outside the confines of their duties. Four years since they had been alone. Wenyuan did not know why General Xiahou had decided to pay a visit to him now, of all times. When an idea finally occurred to him, he swallowed, and stared harder into the wood of the table.

“Best of wishes, General,” his eyes closed without his will, “for your courtship of Lady Du.”

“What?”

“She is a good woman,” Wenyuan said. Though he had never once spoken to her, he had heard of her: once one of the Emperor’s lower wives, married to him only after he arrived at Xu, she had done her best to aid Guan Yunchang, and was imprisoned by the then-Empress Fu within the harem. For her efforts, the current Empress had made her one of his handmaidens. Tucking his hands behind his back, he lifted his head up. But his eyes fixed upon a spot above the General’s head despite himself. “I am certain that you will bring each other happiness.”

General Xiahou crossed the distance between them with a few long strides. Unbidden, an image to come Wenyuan: those thighs flexing as he lifted him up. His own skin burned with the feel of that solidity, engraved in him deep enough to write upon his bones.

“Do you…” General Xiahou said. His voice was, for some reason, choked. “Do you actually wish for me to…” He trailed off.

“You deserve happiness, General,” Wenyuan said when silence threatened to strangle him where he stood again. “And surely that you will not begrudge Lady Du her son. He is still so young,” barely five, now, if he remembered correctly, “and surely he would see you as his father if you take her as your wife.”

His traitorous eyes were burning. He refused to blink, refused to allow the flames to come to him. This, he knew, was necessary: he had bound himself to his duty long ago, and his lord had rewarded him aplenty with his service. There was nothing he could give to this man, and Yuanrang—

And General Xiahou deserved so much.

Callused fingers on his jaw. Wenyuan jerked backwards, stumbling as his foot caught on the leg of his chair. It fell backwards, crashing against the floorboard, and he squeezed his eyes shut because it sounded too much like an ending. Far too much for something he knew had barely begun.

“Dammit,” General Xiahou’s voice, so terribly choked. Another crash rang out, followed by rattling: a hand slamming against the desk. “Am I so ugly now that you refuse to even look at me?”

Despite himself, Wenyuan’s eyes flew open. He stared, breathless and confused, at the man standing in front of him. General Xiahou’s head was still half-turned away, as per his usual wont when he was looking at Wenyuan. But, he now realised, it was not because the General did not want to look at him.

Like this, his hair hid the eyepatch.

“What?” This time, it was his voice that croaked.

“The Alpha that Lady Du is interested in,” General Xiahou said, “is my _niece_ , Sergeant Xiahou Hui.”

Wenyuan blinked. 

“You might have heard of her?” the General continued, still not looking at him. “Little Yuanrong, who was just a child when she came with us eight years ago, but now old enough for her own family?”

“I…” 

“If you no longer desire me, General Zhang,” the title sent a thorn of ice stabbing straight into Wenyuan’s heart, piercing through his ribs, “then, please, tell me so. Do not make some pretence of having mistook my niece for myself.” He ducked his head down, and drew back. His shoulders straightened from where they were bowed.

“My pride cannot take such a thing.”

Breath returned to him, rattling in his lungs. Wenyuan tried to smile, and knew it came out more like a grimace. “Your pride deserves more than to be so easily displaced by a scar,” he said. He looked down at his hands for a moment. “You are still…” Not for the first time, he wished he had Lord Cao’s propensity for words outside of war and administration.

“You are still handsome,” he said, and barely stifled a flinch at his own inadequacy.

“Handsome,” General Xiahou echoed. He barked a laugh, ringing harsh and sharp in the room. “You tell me that, and you still refuse to look at me.”

“I cannot,” Wenyuan said. His voice had steadied itself again somehow, though his fingers still trembled. “Your pride, General, deserves far more than one like me as well.”

“One like you.”

“Yes, General,” he said. He tipped his head up. He would keep his pride in this, he told himself. He would, for with his heart turned to tatters, there would be nothing left but that and his duty to hold onto, and he knew how little warmth that gave him in the cold darkness of lonely nights. “One such as this lowly one, who has nothing to give you for he has surrendered it all to his duty.”

The General stared at him for a moment. His shoulders lifted once, shallowly, before lowering again. “Forgive me,” he said, and he moved.

Throughout these four years, there had been countless battles as plenty of lords came storming to Lord Cao’s door, claiming he was usurper and they were defenders of the corpse of the Han dynasty. He had plenty of opportunities to watch General Xiahou fight during those years, but Wenyuan had never allowed himself, because he knew all too well the consequences of such a thing.

Better, he had thought, to still be able to look at him. Better to have his heart holding on to the thin stitches of false hope than to allow it to be torn apart entirely.

But his denial had made him forget just how _quick_ this man was. General Xiahou had crossed the desk that separated them in an instant, and his hands were warm and rough against Wenyuan’s jaw. When Wenyuan gasped, trying to pull back to save himself some dignity, the man dragged him in and wrapped his arm around his waist.

Then his lips were on his.

 _Warm_. They were so warm. He was so warm, all over, a single column of flame pressed against his entire body. Wenyuan had not noticed until now just how cold he was these past four years, and he was gasping despite himself, his hands coming up to General Xiahou’s arms, clawing at the cotton of his General’s uniform.

He was cold again. Chill at his fingertips, chill everywhere, sinking deep into his bones. The only heat left was in his eyes, and Wenyuan squeezed them shut as his hand scrambled for the desk, barely holding himself upright.

“If you wish to humiliate me, General,” he said, shoulders shaking at the weak, tremulous nature of his own voice, “then you have done so marvellously.”

“That was not my—” Yuanrang— _no, no,_ he would not allow himself, he refused, he _refused_ — the General broke off. “Why do you _still_ not understand? Whatever you give to me, I will accept. Whatever you do not desire, I will not ask for.” Before Wenyuan could reply, he barked another laugh. “Rich words from a man who stole a kiss while asking for permission he knew he would not be granted.” 

The slide of cloth upon cloth, skin against hair. “Please,” Wenyuan said. Embers, banked for four years, were starting to spark once more between his hips. “Walk away. I beg you. Please leave.” His knees were threatening to buckle. There was only so much he could do to hold on to his pride before his fingers broke irreparably.

“Do you really mean that?” the General’s voice, so loud, and yet its boisterousness could not hide its breaks. “Look at me if you truly mean that.” A long, shuddering breath. “Wenyuan. Please. At least grant me this.”

There was nothing Wenyuan could do to resist. He inhaled as well, trying to find some strength in the air. But the muggy thickness of late summer could give him no relief, and he carved more of himself from his very bones to set into his knees. He dug more of his blood from his heart to force his eyes open.

Yuanrang stood there. His one remaining eye shone so bright. Wenyuan’s hand trembled as he reached out. His thumb first brushed the curve of one cheekbone, and he heard the tear of his heart – so much like paper – when Yuanrang’s lashes fell over to cast deep, splaying shadows upon his other cheek.

“Your scar is a mark of the battles you have won,” he said, and his voice was so, so steady. “This leather covering your eye, General,” he allowed his fingers to skitter over it gently, “it has become a mark of your beauty.”

“You say all that,” Yuanrang said. His shoulders trembled with his shallow, rapid breaths. “You say all that, and you will ask me to leave.”

“I ask that of you,” Wenyuan said, “for you deserve better this lowly one, who has nothing to give.”

“There is plenty.” Callused fingers on his wrist. That dark eye opened and, oh, its gaze was so piercing. “This is plenty.”

“For twelve years now I have heard you talk of your pride,” Wenyuan returned. “Will you not grant me mine?” 

He knew himself far too well; if he gave Yuanrang an inch, he would be tempted to give him the entire mile. Wenyuan was not a man for half-measures; he gave himself wholly. But he only had one self to give, and that self was already gifted to Lord Cao in service. All he had left to give to Yuanrang were shattered-tattered pieces, barely enough to fill two hands cupped together.

What right had he to pride himself on his devotion and duty when there was so little he could give? What right had he to pride himself on integrity when he wished to give everything?

Hands cupped his cheeks. Wenyuan swallowed back the sob that wanted to badly to rise up in his throat. Breath skittered over his lips, and he dragged it in desperately.

Thumbs stroked down, following the line of his jaw to scraped over the roughness of his beard. Beneath his own hand: Yuanrang’s own smooth cheeks.

“In this,” Yuanrang said, “my wish is yours, truly.” Words from eight years ago. Wenyuan closed his eyes so he could not see Yuanrang pulling away. But he felt it nonetheless, and this time the chill sunk into him so deep that he felt himself breaking, splintering.

He stood there listening to Yuanrang’s footsteps; quiet tapping of sandals against wood that, nonetheless, reverberated throughout the room. The door opened in a rustle of paper in the gentle breeze. “I did not come here to brag to you,” Yuanrang said. His words had Wenyuan opening his eyes again, blinking. Yuanrang was looking at him over his shoulder, and his smile was wry. “I am here to convey my cousin’s orders, actually.”

Wenyuan breathed in. He straightened his spine, and nodded just once. “What does Lord Cao wish of me?”

“Word has it that Yuan Xi, Yuan Shang, and Yuan Tan have crossed the borders of Wei into Shu Han.” Laughing, Yuanrang shook his head. His grin was lopsided. “The Empress heard of the news before His Majesty the Emperor did.”

“You mean,” Wenyuan said, “the Empress has ridden out to confront the three Yuan siblings before they could reach Liu Bei’s stronghold?”

“Precisely that,” Yuanrang nodded. “He has already been gone for two hours. By the time you set out, he would’ve already reached Puyang.” The distance between that particular town and the closest city to the border, Hanzhong, was at least a week by horse. The Yuan siblings would have surely reached Chengdu by then.

“And Lord Cao wants _me_ to go after him,” Wenyuan said, less to clarify than to be absolutely certain what he was hearing. He could feel a headache starting at the back of his skull.

“Yes,” Yuanrang said. “He said that you would know why.”

In all honesty, Wenyuan didn’t. He resisted the urge to rub a hand over his face. He huffed out just once instead. “Why did he send you to deliver this message?” he asked. He did not ask, _If you knew that I would be leaving, then why did you even say any of what you did?_ Long years with Lord Cao had taught him that he should not ask questions he did not want the answers to.

“I do not know,” Yuanrang said. He was staring at his own hand where it was splayed on the doorframe. “But I am grateful to him, nonetheless.” The smile he flashed over his shoulder was so sweet that it almost sent Wenyuan stumbling. “Because now I have a kiss, and a few touches, to keep me warm for the loneliness of the rest of my life.” 

Before Wenyuan could reply, he left the room. The sound of the door closing hung in the air for a moment before fading. Closing his eyes, Wenyuan let out another breath. Then he straightened his shoulders and steeled his back. He headed out to pack, and then to the stables to retrieve a horse.

Somehow, he managed to catch up with the Empress and the Yuan siblings both near the borders of Basi. He noted, once again, that for a man Lord Cao constantly praised for his compassion, for a man whose regnal name included the character _for_ compassion, Guan Yunchang thrived in battle. Wenyuan served less as aid than spectator, though he did help to take down Yuan Xi, the eldest sister and the best warrior.

In fact, it was the Empress who helped him more. Before the bodies had cooled, he had ushered Wenyuan into the nearest inn. Then he shoved mint and mugwort into Wenyuan’s lap, and locked him into a room and stood guard over it for the next three days.

He did not ask why Wenyuan came even as heat was approaching. He did not ask what had happened to cause it. He did not ask anything at all, except for if Wenyuan could ride the day after he emerged from the room with his legs shaking.

It was a kindness Wenyuan did not deserve. It was more than enough for him to be convinced, once again, that it was not such a bad thing to follow this man, too, wherever he might lead. Wenyuan would not have complained otherwise – Guan Yunchang was tied to Lord Cao, and to follow one was to follow the other – but it was reassuring. 

And that was enough. That was enough.


	5. 不知义, “to not understand one’s purpose”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the first scene, characterisations of Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yun here are taken from _Red Cliff_. I’ve used and misused the movie to the point where it’s absolutely ridiculous. Look, this fic is an adaptation of an adaptation of history, and I’ve also combined other adaptations, and I turned all of them on their heads to focus on the supposed ‘villains’ of the story _and_ made it all into ABO. I’m obsessive about details, but please don’t expect me to be a stickler for accuracy.

_The seventh year of the Cao Dynasty, early winter  
Chibi, the Kingdom of Wu_

Outside the wooden house, rain was pouring down, heavy and loud. Behind him, the wooden pole was stiff against his back, digging into the flesh between his shoulderblades. The straw of the ropes cut into his ankles, knees, wrists, and throat. His thighs and calves screamed at being forced to kneel for hours. The scent of tea, fresh and green, nudged at the edge of his senses, barely enough to dislodge the scent of rain and the salt of the nearby Yangtze.

His capture was partly due to Lord Cao having made one of his few mistakes, Wenyuan knew: Lord Cao should not have underestimated Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang, and taken instead into account that they would guess that he, unused to naval battle, would prefer to use the land troops. Though it was Wenyuan’s own fault as well, for he should not have fallen into the ambush the enemy had set, and he should have trained his troops better such that they would not be taken by surprise when faced with the outdated bagua formation, and be unable to escape.

Those men were all dead, now. Wenyuan himself was only alive right now because they had recognised him as Lord Cao’s second-in-command in court; his famed Lord Chancellor. One of the allied generals also made some mutters about his ferocity in battle; Wenyuan could not remember which who it was, only that it was not Zhang Fei.

Lidding his eyes, Wenyuan counted the hours until they would behead him. Hopefully Lord Cao would not be too upset at receiving his head in a box, and take that as the lesson it was meant to be: to not underestimate men who had expertise in the type of warfare he had little experience in.

Never mind any of that. He concentrated back to his current surroundings. 

The man who sat opposite him, a distance away, was dressed in white, with a single scarlet strip at the collar, the colours stark in its purity amidst the dark browns and blacks that surrounded him. His hands were delicate upon the handle of the ladle as he dipped it into the pot of tea, pouring it out.

“I’ve heard that, eight years ago, the armies of Cao captured one of your great Generals, Mister Zhuge.” The other man seated at the same table was dressed in dark reds, his helmet off but his armour still strapped to his chest. He lifted the cup once Zhuge Liang had poured the tea, and sipped at it. “He was said to be treated terribly.”

Despite himself, Wenyuan smiled. “Viceroy Zhou Yu,” he murmured, cracking one eye open to stare at the man. “Have you not heard of the crossing of the four passes?” _Would anyone so terribly treated push themselves that far to return to their tormentor?_ He did not voice out those words, but the narrowing of both men’s eyes told him that they saw it, nonetheless.

Over the rim of his cup, Zhou Yu said, “There are matters in the hearts of omegas that are incomprehensible to anyone else.”

Swallowing back the bark of laughter that made his throat strain against the ropes tying him to the pole, Wenyuan widened his smile. “Chief Strategist of Shu,” he said, flicking his gaze over to Zhuge Liang. Some strands of hair from his loosened topknot had fallen into his eyes, but he didn’t bother to try to shake them away. “Why are you dressed in robes, serving tea, while the Viceroy there puts himself into armour in order to receive it?”

Zhuge Liang’s hands stilled where he was returning the ladle back to its stand. Wenyuan could see the deflating of his chest as he let out a long breath. “Your meaning is obscure to me,” he said, and his glance was sidelong, too. “Zhang Liao of Mayi.”

“I am honoured that you have heard of me,” Wenyuan said. He leaned back against the pole behind him, spreading his knees further as if lounging indolently instead of being tied and captured. Straw dug into his neck, but he ignored the pain easily. “But I find it difficult to believe that a man with a reputation for intelligence like you, Chief Strategist,” he paused to allow the title to sink into the air, “does not grasp my meaning.”

“The answer is in the very title you have used to address me,” Zhuge Liang said. He picked up his hawk-wing fan, splaying it across his chest. His eyes had turned dark and sharp, now, and his lips were thin. “What need has a Chief Strategist to dress himself in armour, when his purpose is elsewhere?”

Zhou Yu’s head had tilted to the side during the conversation. Now he stood, unfolding his legs from beneath him. Then he picked up another ceramic cup from where the rack near the table, and walked over to the pot of tea. Wenyuan watched as he filled it, and his smile widened to show teeth when the man stopped in front of him, and went on one knee.

“Does this please you?” Zhou Yu asked, his voice so level that Wenyuan could hear the tremor hidden deep beneath. “A viceroy made to serve?”

Wenyuan leaned forward. Staring into Zhou Yu’s eyes through the wafting steam of the tea, he shook his head. “Your Lordship,” he said, deliberately coiling the title around his tongue. “You have missed my meaning entirely.”

Then, before Zhou Yu could react, he turned his head. His tongue darted out as he licked along the rim of the ceramic. He could see the very moment when the Alpha’s eyes went wide, and felt the air shifted by the bobbing of the knot in his throat.

“I pity your wives, lordship,” he said. “For you not only misunderstand their hearts, but your eyes are blurred instead of blinded, so much that you could fool yourself that you truly see.”

Brows creasing, Zhou Yu rocked back on his heels. His footsteps came heavier now, weighted with frustration; only some sort of honour stopped him from reaching for the blade that laid beside his seat. Wenyuan could barely stop himself from laughing when he noticed Zhuge Liang’s fingers were pale around the handle of his fan, and his white robes fluttered as he moved the hawk’s wing rapidly.

Raising his voice such that it could ring out in the enclosed room, Wenyuan said, “Your wrists, Chief Strategist, were made by your parents’ blood to be strong enough to hold sword and book and fan all.” He tilted his head, and waited until Zhou Yu had taken his seat. “Is a lord who forces you to choose two out of three one who is worth following?”

“The stains and calluses of my fingertips,” Zhuge Liang said, his voice steady, “are the shadows left by my own choices.”

Wenyuan made a hum at the bottom of his throat; a sound he learned from Lord Cao to be similar to that of assent. “Tell me, Viceroy,” he said, turning once more to Zhou Yu. “You are rumoured to be well-versed in music and calligraphy and strategy all, and you have a deft hand with a blade also.”

“Those rumours praise me too highly,” Zhou Yu murmured; an expected, meaningless response belied by his narrowing eyes. 

“Would you say your talents were granted by the blood in your veins,” Wenyuan asked, tilting his head to the side, “or the tutors who once knelt at your feet?”

Zhou Yu opened his mouth. But before he could speak, there was a sudden, piercing bird’s call. Wenyuan ducked his head so he could hide the widening of his eyes and the tripping of his breath in his lungs. Surely…. Surely, this could not be. Surely, Lord Cao would not…

Rapid footsteps thudding against wooden floorboards. “Viceroy Zhou, Mister Zhuge!” The Chief Strategist’s head snapped up immediately, his cup making a sharp _click_ on the wooden table as he set it back down. “We are under attack!”

They rose immediately. But while Zhuge Liang headed immediately for the door, practically slamming it open, Zhou Yu stopped, and turned his eyes to Wenyuan. Even without looking up, he could feel the intensity of that stare.

“Even in the distant Southlands, we heard the rumours of that Cao Cao usurped the throne not for his own ambitions, but for the sake of his wife.” A long, deliberate pause. “If he was fool enough to go against the mandate of heaven for one who should be akin to a sleeve, what will he do for a man he had raised to be his Chancellor?”

Raising his eyes, Wenyuan looked into those dark ones through the heavy sheaf of his messy hair. “His Chancellor wishes him to do nothing,” he said. “But Lord Cao has his own will.”

“A usurper, self-styled an Emperor, and yet on your lips you called him a mere ‘lord,’ lower than my own station.” Zhou Yu’s head cocked to the side. “Yes, I do believe this is necessary.”

He had picked up his sword as he stood, and now he unsheathed it. Wenyuan did not close his eyes even as he sent a silent apology to Lord Cao. Despite his efforts, it seemed that he was already too late to retrieve a living Chancellor instead of a corpse, after all.

But when the tip of the blade touched his neck, it was not to cut skin. Straw parted under steel, and Wenyuan was left blinking, disorientated, even as Zhou Yu’s hand gripped tight to his shoulder to drag him to his feet. The blade cut the ropes at his ankles and knees off as well, and he stumbled out of the room and down the stairs into what must be the training grounds of the stronghold of Chibi.

The light of the moon was dim, half-hidden behind the tall cliffs that surrounded the area. Still, there was enough to make the rocks shine red, justifying its name. Wenyuan blinked before he tore himself away from the blood-like gleam, looking instead at the grounds of the fortress, where the armies of Shu Han and Eastern Wu were starting to rush around, directed by the yells of their generals. 

None of which could dull the sounds of thundering hooves at the edge of his hearing.

“Wenyuan!” A very familiar voice. Wenyuan looked up. At the edge of a camp, the glint of a blade held up to the skies.

“If you consider kindness and passion to be foolishness, Viceroy,” Wenyuan said, out of the corner of his mouth, “then, please, consider this to be the same.”

Without waiting for a reply, Wenyuan slammed his head sideways, catching Zhou Yu’s clean-shaven chin with his temple. He ignored the pain that burst into being behind his eyes, instead running towards that approaching horse.

“Catch!” 

Moonlight caught upon steel. Wenyuan kept his eyes on it even as he bent his knees and _jumped_. His feet slapped on the heads and shoulders of the soldiers who had rushed to him to try to stop him, propelling him into the air. He ducked his head down, avoiding an arrow, before he gathered all of his strength at his thighs and calves, making them scream even as he made one final leap.

Wrought iron and leather between his teeth. Wenyuan caught the hilt of the blade and twisted hard in the air. His legs kicked out, feet finding the jaws and cheeks of more soldiers before he met the ground, knees sinking into the loose soil for a moment before he rolled forward and stood again. A glimpse of a familiar-looking horse out of the corner of his eyes, and he spun around immediately just as it thundered past him.

A blade arrived along with the whipping wind. Steel parting straw, and then his arms were free.

“Where is your sword?” That familiar voice cut through the shrieking neighs of the horse as it was pulled suddenly to a stop. 

Wrenching the hilt in his mouth into a hand, Wenyuan grinned at Yuanrang as the General’s feet landed in the sand next to him. “Lost,” he answered as their backs pressed against each other. “Already broken and buried, most likely.”

“A pity,” Yuanrang said. “For it was repaired with good Pengcheng steel that had lasted you well all of these years.”

Despite himself, despite the blades and soldiers who surrounded them, despite even the piercing bird calls he could hear ringing in the distances, Wenyuan laughed. “Is this not repaired with the same steel?” he asked, and threw himself downwards to avoid a spear, and then stabbed that very blade into the belly of the soldier. “Or are you so selfless that you keep none of it for your own use?”

“To hear myself named selfless by your tongue is great honour indeed!” Yuanrang called back. “Especially after I had selfishly ridden ahead!”

Wenyuan blinked, and barely dodged a clumsy spear aimed for his eye. He swung Yuanrang’s blade in his hand. “Who else came along?”

Yuanrang laughed instead of answering. “You’ll see, Lord Chancellor,” he shouted, hand gripping Wenyuan’s arm. Wenyuan squeezed back, forcing down his instinctive reaction at being able to touch this man still, and steadied himself. They moved in tandem, using the momentum of their feet to throw themselves forward, blades sinking in between ribs and wrenching out screams. 

It was almost too much. For seven years now, he had kept himself carefully from Yuanrang; that slip three years ago was nearly enough to break him entirely until only splinters remained of his self. Now, with Yuanrang fighting next to him, and the Alpha’s blade like live steel in his hand, the warmth of its hilt sending lightning shuddering up his arm…he tried to breathe.

“You’ll see!” Yuanrang shouted again.

Opening his mouth, Wenyuan’s voice died in his throat. War drums rang out loud around them, the beats accompanied by the sound of stamping feet as the soldiers draw back from Yuanrang and himself, moving into formation. But none of that mattered.

There, amidst the trees that lined the buildings of the fortress: a black horse. Astride on it, a man dressed purely in black, a living shadow with a tanned face and glinting white teeth. Both of his hands were wrapped around the dark reins of his horse, and he pulled to a stop right in front of them.

“Fire! _Fire_!”

Surging forward, Wenyuan found himself caught by Yuanrang’s arm wrapping around his waist. His heart roared, and he knew not if it was because of the touch or if it was the sight of Lord Cao, sitting astride an unmoving horse, smiling as arrows headed towards him.

“You’ll see,” Yuanrang said, for the third time.

A screaming neigh. Another horse, black as well, burst from the trees. Its rider leaped from the saddle, glaive already held in both hands. As Wenyuan watched, Guan Yunchang swung his blade around himself three times, each spin far too quick for the eye to see, and landed in front of Lord Cao on the balls of his feet.

Wooden and metal fell, snapped into half mid-air. Lord Cao raised an arm, his voluminous silk sleeve covered his face as the arrowheads rained down on him. The Empress raised himself back to his full height, and tucked his glaive behind his back until only the blade was visible. 

“Mengde,” Guan Yunchang said, his voice soft but resonant in the suddenly-silent clearing. The collective intake of breath was enough to cause a breeze to whip through Wenyuan’s hair. “Do not enter into enemy territory without me.”

Lowering his arm, Lord Cao swept his sleeve downwards, dislodging the splinters and few remaining heads that had landed on his chest and thighs. “Apologies, Empress,” Lord Cao said, though his smirk showed that he knew exactly what he was doing. “I was overexcited.”

“Cao Cao,” a voice rang out, loud and faraway both. Zhou Yu’s, Wenyuan recognised. “What are you—” 

Lord Cao interrupted him with a sudden bird-like call. As it faded, another thundering of hooves came to replace it. Ten men on horseback burst through the trees, all of them immediately taking their positions in a line behind Lord Cao’s back. 

Wenyuan’s breath caught. The Empress, standing in front of them with his glaive gleaming, was an image beautiful enough to belong to a painting; to be immortalised in opera.

“Viceroy Zhou Yu,” Lord Cao greeted, tipping his head up to meet the man’s eyes from where he stood at the watchtower. “This is your territory, but do you reckon that General Cai Mao here,” he waved a hand towards that man’s direction, “might know it better?”

Southerners were said to know the moment when the winds changed. Wenyuan’s eyes shifted to that man, and calculated once more his estimate of his loyalty. He had, along with Zhang Yun, only crawled to Lord Cao’s feet but a few months ago, after all. Or, perhaps, this was less a show of loyalty than an attempt to get one up to his old enemy.

Zhou Yu opened his mouth. But Wenyuan could not contain himself any longer: he struggled out of Yuanrang’s grip, standing by his own merit before he jerked his own head up.

“My Lord!” he called. When Lord Cao’s attention turned to him, he swung his arm out, Yuanrang’s sword slicing through the air. “ _What the fuck are you doing?_ ”

Behind him, Yuanrang choked. Wenyuan ignored him, hand trembling as his furious eyes fixed on his lord. He ignored, too, how the Empress’s duck of the head did not hide his chuckle, and how even Zhuge Liang was laughing from behind his fan even as Zhou Yu gaped.

“For nearly seventeen years, you have followed me,” Lord Cao said, amusement thrumming in his voice. “For all those years, you have never once questioned my actions. Yet _now_ you do, when it’s obvious enough to everyone here.”

“He’s here to rescue you,” Guan Yunchang said, likely trying to be helpful by translating Lord Cao’s habitual obtuseness. Wenyuan’s eyebrow twitched.

“Besides,” Lord Cao continued, managing to convey amusement without moving an inch of his body or face, “who will I rely on for the administration of my state if you are lost to me?” 

“Yourself, maybe?” Wenyuan said, eyebrow twitching again. “His Majesty the Empress is surely capable, as well?”

Lord Cao shrugged, “Both of us have the ability, certainly.” He folded his hands, and inclined his head. “But, unlike you, Wenyuan, we find such things incredibly boring.”

“Your Majesty,” Yuanrang raised his voice from behind him. “Please do not tell our beloved Lord Chancellor that he is being rescued to alleviate your and His Majesty the Empress’s boredom. It hurts my pride, even if it does not hurt his.”

His _pride_. Those words, in the midst of their enemies. _His_ pride. As if Wenyuan belonged to him, and he was willing to declare that to all who was here, both their generals and the enemy’s. As if he was still a fool, hoping and hoping, despite the years that had passed and the words said between them. As if the space between their bodies did not exist. Wenyuan closed his eyes.

“I did not realise that Cao Cao likes to use amusement as a distraction tactic.” Zhuge Liang’s voice, bell-clear, rang out in the empty air around them. “But I have to admit that it is rather effective, isn’t it?”

No more time for thoughts. Wenyuan snapped back into action just as everyone else around them moved. Yuanrang shoved two fingers into his mouth, calling for his horse, even as Lord Cao and his generals reared theirs up, turning to head back from whichever way they had come. The Empress stood in front of them, glaive bright silver, as he blocked attempts to attack their retreat.

Wenyuan spun around, stabbing another soldier in the chest to give Yuanrang space to leap upon his horse’s back. Then, just as he made to run, he felt a hand close around his arm.

“Come,” Yuanrang said. His lone eye shone beneath the light, and his smile was crooked and sad at the corners. “Do not allow me to fail in this self-imposed duty.”

Breath hitching, Wenyuan stared up at him. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the Empress call for his own horse even as he spun once more into the air, cutting down the arrows that threatened to kill the heads of Wei.

They were running out time. Wenyuan’s duty fought against his pride. He let out a breath and, with it, the latter. 

One foot on the stirrup, he handed Yuanrang’s sword back to him. As metal clicked against metal, he lifted himself up until he was seated in front of Yuanrang on the horse. “Go,” Yuanrang urged, and when he grabbed the reins, his arms wrapped around Wenyuan’s waist, encircling him. His chest was a hot column of flame against Wenyuan’s back even through his armour, and his smooth jaw and warm breath brushed against his cheek against he drove the horse once more into a gallop.

Head spinning, Wenyuan tried to concentrate. The horse swerved around, running in zigzag to avoid the arrows. As they passed by the Empress, Guan Yunchang swung himself upon his own horse, his glaive still a spinning blur on his back; a constant, unwavering shield.

“Ride ahead of me!” the Empress called to them. “Do not turn back, and do not wait!”

“That’s ridiculous!” The words burst from Wenyuan. “Your Majesty, nothing will matter if you end up injured, or worse!” This man, after all, was the reason behind the entire existence of the kingdom of Wei.

“Do you really think I would be?” Guan Yunchang fired back. Without looking, he let go of his horse’s reins, catching an arrow with that hand before throwing it back the direction from which it had come. There was a yell, and a louder _thump._ “Have you forgotten who I am?”

“Neither of us have,” Yuanrang said before Wenyuan could speak. “But we also remember, Your Majesty, you are not as invulnerable as your skills make you seem.”

Dark eyes flashed towards them. Yuanrang laughed, and the sound of it rumbled deep enough in his chest to make his armour shudder with it. “Besides,” he continued, “my cousin would have both of our heads if we left you behind, and you are injured as a result of it.” 

“Does the fact that I will be displeased if either of you are hurt not matter?” the Empress asked, head cocking to the side just in time to avoid a branch from jabbing out his eye.

“With all respect, Your Majesty,” Wenyuan said before Yuanrang could speak again. “Please do not put us in a difficult position to choose between your displeasure and Lord Cao’s.”

Opening his mouth, Guan Yunchang closed it again. At that moment, he made a swerving turn, heading away from the forests towards the rocky outcrops. Yuanrang’s horse followed him, and the man himself bent further forward, his chest pressed against Wenyuan’s back with no inches of space remaining between them.

“As usual, Lord Chancellor,” Guan Yunchang said. “You make a good point.”

Wenyuan swallowed. Less because of the Empress’s words than the sight that met him as the trees fell away sharply. There, right in front of him, was a passage the width of three men standing aside in formation. As they headed inside, he stared at the ground, noticing the stream that flowed through it, and then upwards, where the rock walls reached up, avaricious, for the skies.

Pieces fell into place. He licked his lips.

“Your Majesty, General,” he said, raising his voice so that the Empress ahead could hear him. “Lord Cao did not make a mistake, did he?” 

Guan Yunchang laughed. His long tail of hair smacked against his shoulder as he turned around to face them. “Mengde did,” he said. His smile was lopsided, and his eyes glinted so bright with affection. “But he learns very quickly from the mistakes he makes.”

For all of Lord Cao’s talk of boredom, of rescue, here was another reason for his presence in the Shu-Wu camp: their inability to kill him where he stood would hurt pride and morale, and the bodies of soldiers killed by both Yuanrang and Wenyuan himself would worsen the wound, especially so soon after a perceived victory. As a result, the commanders and strategists would have no choice but to attack as swiftly as they could, in order to snatch victory from the jaws of their men’s fear.

Hence, Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang had but two paths: first was to follow them through this passageway, or to swing around the other side so that they could reach Lord Cao’s camp without having to cross the great width of the Yangtze; or they could send the navy out immediately, without waiting for the winds to change in their favour, and be met with the ships Lord Cao already had waiting opposite Chibi.

A knot loosened in Wenyuan’s throat. Unbidden, his body sagged against Yuanrang, and he could not even find it within himself to protest when a kiss, hesitant and gentle, landed in his mussed hair. 

“My cousin always has more than a single reason for his actions,” Yuanrang murmured in his ear. His arms were so warm around Wenyuan’s body. “You should not ever worry about being a burden.” The smooth skin of his jaw slipped over Wenyuan’s hairline. The roughness of his leather eyepatch, interrupting. 

“Not to him. Not to me.”

“General,” Wenyuan whispered. His eyes slid closed as he tipped his head back. He was a fool, he knew, for surely there were soldiers chasing them, and battles awaited their door the moment they reached back to the camp. But he had never felt as safe as he did right now, cradled in Yuanrang’s arms as the world sped away from his grasp. 

“I have said it before, and I will say it again,” Yuanrang said. “In this, my wish is yours, truly.”

Long-banked embers inside him sputtered back into life. The heat of Yuanrang’s body crawled through his own skin to sink into his bones. Wenyuan shuddered hard in the saddle, and his eyes squeezed shut as Yuanrang’s arms tightened around his waist. 

“Have you realised how wrong you are when you named me selfless?” Yuanrang continued. “I thought to myself, I would be pleased enough to have you near me; content, too, with glimpses of you without ever knowing again the touch of your skin to mine. But when I heard that you had been captured…”

Wenyuan closed his eyes. “You rode out first,” he said, the knowledge sinking in deep. “And Lord Cao and the Empress followed behind.”

“Yes,” Yuanrang said. “I would have been content to be captured, and to die beheaded beside you.” His lips brushed Wenyuan’s temple again, his breath so warm. “Though I know that I would be going against my duty, though I know my actions would’ve doomed my Emperor to losing a General and a Chancellor both, I could do nothing else.” He shuddered out a laugh, bitter-sounding. “I could not have stayed to wait to see your face again in a box.”

Slowly, hesitantly, Wenyuan closed his fingers around Yuanrang’s wrist. He could feel the thrum of his pulse beneath his thumb; could feel the hitch of his breath in his throat. 

“How long can you bear my selfishness?” he asked helplessly. “How long can you bear waiting?”

Yuanrang laughed again. Sweeter, this time, and his thumb stroked a line from the hollow of Wenyuan’s throat down to his unarmoured ribs. “Do you remember when we first met?” Yuanrang asked. “With crates of steel for my cousin’s army, I won your favour.” Wenyuan opened his mouth, but Yuanrang’s lips were at the corner of his, silencing.

“Have you not realised, Wenyuan?” he asked. “I have loved you, and I love you still, for your devotion to your duty.”

Instinctively, Wenyuan squeezed his eyes shut. But he could not stop the heat from travelling from his nerves into his eyes. He could not stop himself from turning his head, burying his face into Yuanrang’s chest, as his breaths twisted themselves into sobs. “Yet you want me to give that up for your sake,” he said, shaking again.

“No,” Yuanrang murmured. “I live only in hope that, one day, you will find room in your capacity for devotion for me.”

As they exited from the narrow passage out into the open air, as wind whipped around him, Wenyuan found himself curling inwards. Those words were flames and water both, and he was old wood, half-rotted within, unable to bear the pressure of the sprout of his heart pressing against his ribs.

“Yuanrang,” he said, finally allowing himself to speak the man’s courtesy name after so many years. “Yuanrang. I…”

“Shh,” Yuanrang shushed him. His thumb on Wenyuan’s lips, gently nudging. “Do not insult my pride by apologising for the choices I have made myself.” 

He had asked Zhuge Liang: _Is a lord who forces you to choose two out of three one who is worth following?_ Now Yuanrang spoke of choice, too, and Wenyuan knew now that he had been a terrible hypocrite in asking.

For all of these years, he had wanted to give Yuanrang a choice; to look upon others who was not him, and take them to his side instead. But in doing so, he had denied that Yuanrang’s choice had already been made, and it had been – and would always be – him.

Long, callused fingers across his waist. Wenyuan held onto the reins with one hand even as he closed his other hand around Yuanrang’s, raising it to press his mouth against the knuckles. Now he knew. He knew, and yet…

For long moments, he could not speak. Yuanrang kissed the corner of his jaw. Then, with a soft murmur of, “Hold the reins,” he took his arms away from Wenyuan’s face. 

Hands sunk into the loosened tie holding Wenyuan’s hair back, and he shuddered, head dropping back, as Yuanrang pulled the strands free. Here, as the horse galloped below them and the Empress rode ahead, Yuanrang’s callused fingers were steady as he gathered up Wenyuan’s mussed hair, pulling it all back before wrapping the strip of cloth tight again.

Only when his arms fell back down to encircle his waist could Wenyuan find words again.

“Battles are approaching, swift and bloody,” he said. “The weight of them will form the ground beneath Wei’s feet, or cut it off at the knees.”

Ahead of them, the Wei encampment loomed. Lord Cao’s surname embroidered on flags pinned on the tops of every single tent, all of them fluttering in the constant sea breeze. The Empress had already reached the gates, and was now dismounting from his horse with one hand in Lord Cao’s, who had of course waited to greet him. Though, this time, he at least remembered to send his horse to be wiped down and rested first.

They rode through the gates in a gallop. The guards, knees bent and heads lowered in a bow, nevertheless still blinked at the sight of the Lord Chancellor wrapped up in General Xiahou’s arms. Wenyuan tried to force down the creeping flush, and knew he didn’t succeed. He made to dismount, but Yuanrang stopped him with his hand brushing over his thigh. “Indulge me, please,” he said, and the creases at the edge of his one remaining eye took Wenyuan’s breath away just long enough for him to agree.

There was no way for him to steady his breaths, however, for Yuanrang now stood beside the horse, and was holding his hand out to Wenyuan in the same manner as Lord Cao did to the Empress. Wenyuan blinked, and he stared at him. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Lord Cao’s lips twitching.

Hesitantly, he placed a hand on Yuanrang’s. Then he swung his leg over the horse’s back, balancing himself with one foot in the stirrup, and allowed himself to be helped down to the ground. They stared at each other.

“Lord Chancellor,” Yuanrang’s voice rang out, loud enough to catch the attention of the generals who were still waiting at attention around them. “You have lost your sword in your performance of your duty. To replace it,” he reached back with the hand not still curled around Wenyuan’s wrist, and drew the twin sword he usually held with his right hand, “I offer you this.”

Wenyuan took a deep breath. “To fulfil your duty, you require both,” he said, speaking just as loudly as Yuanrang, denying the urge to lower his voice. “However, you have done me a great boon today, General, and in return…”

Closing his hand around the offered hilt, he took a step forward. With one hand still in Yuanrang’s, he swung it up, and then behind the Alpha’s back. As the blade slid back into its sheathe, his chest pressed tight against Yuanrang’s.

“You,” Yuanrang tried to say, and Wenyuan silenced him by pressing his lips to his.

Eleven years ago, now, Yuanrang had kissed him in full sight of Lord Cao and the previous boy-Emperor, and though Wenyuan had enjoyed the kiss, he was not fully cognizant into it. Now there were embers flaring in his chest once more, but his mind was clear of smoke, and he could feel fully the trembling of Yuanrang’s breath against his skin. He could hear, too, the Empress’s huff. Whatever the man wished to say, however, was likely stifled by Lord Cao’s hand; the muffled noise made that clear enough.

Then Yuanrang’s hand cupped his cheek, and it was difficult to focus on anything else. His warmth surrounded him as he untangled his hand from Wenyuan’s to wrap around his waist, pressing their bodies together. Their lips remained sealed, but Yuanrang tilted his head until his mouth closed around Wenyuan’s lower lip, and he sucked lightly on it.

Eventually, they pulled apart. Yuanrang’s hand found his again, and Wenyuan nearly laughed as he raised it up to brush his lips against the knuckles.

“We both have our duties,” Yuanrang said.

“The sun will rise and bring with it the rumbling of horses’ hooves charging,” Wenyuan returned. He brushed his thumb over the curve of Yuanrang’s smooth cheek. “And these days of war are unending.”

When Yuanrang dipped his head, he was smiling. His grip loosened, and Wenyuan pulled away. He headed over to Lord Cao without turning his head, and dropped down to one knee without lifting it.

“My Lord,” he said. “Your Chancellor has returned safely.” 

There was no response. After a moment, Wenyuan blinked, and lifted his head. 

Lord Cao was frowning, his hands hidden once more within his sleeves. His eyes were fixed upon Wenyuan’s now-neat hair. “This,” he started, and then sighed. When he next spoke, his voice was barely loud enough to be heard. “This is the fifth time, isn’t it?”

Of course Lord Cao would know that the embers were burning even when Wenyuan was trying to hide all signs of them. He lowered his gaze. “Yes,” he said. “It is.”

“Stand up, Chancellor,” Lord Cao said. When Wenyuan was back on his feet, a heavy hand landed on his shoulder, and squeezed. “There will not be a sixth. That, I will promise.”

Wenyuan stared at him, uncomprehending, but no answers were forthcoming: Lord Cao had already turned away. He held out his arm, and the Empress stepped immediately to his side, tucking his hand into his elbow as he matched Lord Cao mid-stride. At that dismissal, the generals inclined their heads to Wenyuan, and turned to leave as well.

“What,” Wenyuan said to the empty air, “does that even mean?”

Yuanrang came up beside him. “Perhaps he has taken pity on me,” he said, tone wry.

Considering that for a moment, Wenyuan dismissed the thought, and sighed. He resisted the urge to rub his hand over his face, turning instead. Reaching out, he brushed his fingertips over the edge of Yuanrang’s visible eye, then his thumb over the edge of the patch.

“Come to me once this is over,” he said. He did not clarify if ‘this’ meant his incoming heat, or the battles that would take place here.

Eyebrow arching, Yuanrang snorted. “You will not try to keep me away?” he asked.

“No,” Wenyuan said. “I will not.”

With that, he headed for his own quarters. Yuanrang did not follow him.

In the morning, neither Lord Cao nor the Empress offered him the usual herbs. Wenyuan was grateful for it; he would not be able to refuse, and he knew full well that he needed the buzzing under his skin for the battles that would come to meet him. If nothing else, the sheer numbers they were facing required his ferocity.

The battles for Red Cliff waged for months: the seventh year of the Cao dynasty left, sweeping in the eighth along with letters for both Lord Cao and the Empress from the Crown Princess, left alone during her birthday celebration in Xu. Wenyuan grew familiar with Yuanrang’s quarters in the encampment, and learned the creaks his bed would make when the General moved along and inside him.

In midsummer of the eighth year of the Cao dynasty, they scored a victory decisive enough to send Liu Bei’s forces scattering and Wu retreating deeper into the East. As they headed back up the Yangtze for Xu, Wenyuan stood on the prow of the command ship on many a night. He looked out towards the night sky, and told himself that now was a lull, and now, he was waiting.

But the embers refused to be lit.

***

_The tenth year of the Cao Dynasty, early spring  
Xu, the Kingdom of Wei_

“You’re enjoying this,” Wenyuan accused. 

Yuanrang peered up at him. The vermillion light of sunset streaming in through the window slats turned his sweat-slicked leather eyepatch the scarlet of fresh blood. His lips curved into a smirk even as he rocked his hips upwards again, sending another pulse into Wenyuan’s body.

“This lowly one does not realise that he’s not supposed to, Lord Chancellor,” Yuanrang drawled, his words barely audible through the roaring in Wenyuan’s ears. “For that, this one apologises.”

Managing a snort, Wenyuan shook his head. “You are far too high in rank to ever use ‘lowly one,’” he said, cranking an eye open to look disapprovingly down to Yuanrang. “Especially with me.”

“But you _are_ the Lord Chancellor,” Yuanrang returned, smirk widening as he settled his hands on Wenyuan’s hips, driving harder into him with the next pulse. “And I am but a mere General.”

A strangled groan escaping him, Wenyuan dropped his head down, pressing his forehead against the top of Yuanrang’s head. Even with the knot tying them together, even with his insides clenched so tight around it that he could feel every rough inch, there was still a trickle of slick and come that trailed out of him with every single move Yuanrang made. It was so obscene that he couldn’t help but shiver.

He swallowed. “One prized enough to be the Grand Marshal of all of Wei’s armies,” he said.

“Only in our esteemed Empress’s convalescence,” Yuanrang said. One hand splayed around the small of Wenyuan’s back as his thrusts turned shallow but faster, practically grinding his knot against the most sensitive spots of Wenyuan’s body. “Not otherwise.”

“That does not,” Wenyuan’s head drop back, and he interrupted himself with a long, loud moan as Yuanrang’s fingers curled around his balls, shifting them up and out of the way of being crushed by his own weight. “Does not…”

“Mm?” Yuanrang’s laughter rumbled against his throat, his chest, even as his fingers now teased at the base of Wenyuan’s cock. “Does not?”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Wenyuan clawed at his arms again, trying to breathe. “Would you rather I speak, or I—” he tried. “Ah!” Yuanrang rolled his hips in a circle, rubbing his knot against the rim of Wenyuan’s hole. “Ah, ahh!”

“Is it my pride or my selfishness, Lord Chancellor,” Yuanrang hummed, his teeth nipping at Wenyuan’s jaw, “that I so enjoy making you lose your eloquence?”

“I—” This time, when Yuanrang ground against him, he timed it perfectly with another pulse of come, his cock swelling where it was buried deep. “ _Ahhh_!”

“Truly, I cannot tell at this point,” Yuanrang continued. His rough tongue laved against the bruise his teeth had made on Wenyuan’s shoulder, every rasping lick sending another jolt of pleasure through his shaking, overwhelmed body. “Or, perhaps, it is greed?”

“Yuanrang,” Wenyuan gasped out. He shouted again, body jerking, as fingers twisted at the head of his cock before moving down to scrape nails lightly over his balls. “I, I can’t—” 

“Wenyuan.” His name, breathed so heavy with want over his own lips. “I have never seen you like this. And now you have shown it to me…” Gripping his hip with one hand, Yuanrang thrust up, lifting Wenyuan almost entirely off the bed, even as he fisted Wenyuan’s cock with rapid strokes. “I will never be able to live without enjoying it every chance I can.”

Throat too tight now for even wordless screams, Wenyuan sobbed as he felt himself coming again, his entire body trembling with the force of it. Raw-nerved, he fell forward, burying his face into Yuanrang’s shoulder, breathing in the salt and hot steel scent of him as he tried to gather the pieces of himself back together again.

“How,” he gasped out. After a moment, he brushed his hair impatiently out of his face, and exerted all of his efforts into a single even breath. “How many children do you want from me?”

Beneath him, Yuanrang stilled entirely. Both hands came to Wenyuan’s face, steadying him as he pulled backwards. A dark, wide gaze met his own tired ones, and Wenyuan blinked as Yuanrang licked his lips.

“You meant what you said.” He sounded irritatingly surprised.

“Have you ever known me to lie?” Wenyuan sighed. He rubbed a hand over his eyes before he settled his one hand upon Yuanrang’s wrist, the one coming up to rub at the edges of his eyepatch. “I allowed for this knowing that it might take.” Or it might not, especially since he was a beta rather than an omega, but Wenyuan knew better to mention that when Yuanrang still looked so uncertain. 

His fingers trailed along the edge of one smooth jaw, and he gave Yuanrang a lopsided smile. “It’s long past time that I put aside my pride, and stop thinking myself indispensable.”

“ _Your_ pride,” Yuanrang said. He cocked his head to the side.

“Yes.”

For long moments, Yuanrang didn’t move. The slow widening of his eye was nearly fascinating enough to distract Wenyuan from the feel of his cock still pulsing inside him.

Then Yuanrang threw his head back and laughed. His body shook as his arms wrapped around Wenyuan’s body, drawing him close even as he buried his face into the crook of his neck. “A man who shies away from praise,” he gasped out. “A man who would rather think himself naught more than the proof of a lesson already learned than to believe that he deserved rescue…”

He pulled back, and shook his head. “A man like you, speaking of _pride_.”

“As ridiculous as you,” Wenyuan said, arching an eyebrow, “have you not waited long years when all sense should tell you to look elsewhere?”

Chuckling, Yuanrang brushed his thumb over Wenyuan’s lips. “A man like you,” he repeated, “who could not even conceive that he is definitely worthy of waiting, no matter how long it might be.”

Before the protest could be fully formed on Wenyuan’s tongue, Yuanrang was already drawing him even closer. They kissed, slow and soft; Yuanrang’s lips sliding against his, breaths escaping from one mouth to enter the other. Wenyuan’s eyes slipped shut despite himself, and he couldn’t even open them when Yuanrang rocked into him again, the movement this time shallow enough to be merely teasing.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Wenyuan said once they pulled apart, foreheads touching and panting against each other.

Slowly stroking his hands through his hair, Yuanrang laughed. “As many as you’re willing to give me,” he said. His thumb stroking over the knob at the nape of Wenyuan’s neck as he hummed. “Though…”

“Though?”

Pulling back, Yuanrang gave him a lopsided smile. “I’ve always desired for a large family,” he said. He tucked Wenyuan’s hair back away from his face, and nudged his thumb over his mouth before he continued, “My father had seven wives and twenty children, and our house was always full of voices and laughter.”

Wenyuan blinked. Then he laughed, for he could do nothing else. “You really should have taken other wives, if that’s the case,” he said, voice dry. “Even if I do my best, I don’t think I can manage twenty on top of my duties.”

Grinning wide, Yuanrang bumped their foreheads together. “My cousin,” he said solemnly, “has taught me the virtue of having only one wife.” He poked Wenyuan’s cheek before he could speak. “And, therefore, stem my desires for the continuation of my line for its sake.”

“Strange,” Wenyuan drawled out the word. “I have never known you for a man prone to dithering.”

“I haven’t been,” Yuanrang protested. He pressed a kiss to Wenyuan’s mouth. “Like I said: as many as you wish to give me.” He paused, and his shoulders shook for a moment. “Though we should accomplish writing your name into my family’s registry first, I should think.”

Despite himself, Wenyuan laughed. For, in that moment, his mind turned to Lord Cao, and though he had called Guan Yunchang his Empress since the first day he returned to him, the two of them didn’t officially wed until _after_ the birth of the Crown Princess. If Lord Cao had other wives, Wenyuan knew, that would be a bone of contention for the Princess’s place as heir.

“Virtues indeed,” he said. He brushed his thumb over the curve of Yuanrang’s cheek, flicking lightly over the eyepatch. “Though do not get your hopes up too highly. It might not take.”

“Do you doubt me so?” Yuanrang said, eye wide with mock insult. Wenyuan laughed, shaking his head. He did not. But he doubted himself. So many years had already passed, after all, and in those years he had taken part in so many battles: who could know what abilities his body could have lost?

Yuanrang was still looking at him, head tilted to the side. After a moment, Wenyuan reached out, and his fingers brushed over the eyepatch, pausing at the edge.

“I’ve told you once that you are beautiful even when marred,” he said, voice soft. “Yet you have never once allowed me to prove my words to be true.”

Even before he had finished speaking, Yuanrang’s hand had closed around his wrist, breath stuttering in his throat. His lone eye stared into Wenyuan’s face, gaze piercing and shadowed both, as if he was looking at something he knew he wouldn’t find. Wenyuan kept his own gaze as steady as he could, and his fingers were gentle as he stroked down Yuanrang’s cheek, brushing away the sheaf of hair that always halfway-hid the leather eyepatch.

“Have you ever known me to lie?” he asked again.

“No,” Yuanrang said. His voice had gone so soft, and his lips tugged up into a lopsided smile. “And I would not make you a liar, either.”

 _Do you have so little faith in me?_ The question hovered on the edge of his tongue, but Wenyuan swallowed it back. He knew from the shadows gathering around the edges of that one eye that this had naught to do with faith. Not in him, at any rate; but Yuanrang’s faith in himself.

Instead of speaking, he kissed his Alpha instead. Pressed their lips together and breathed in his hitching exhale into his own lungs. He ground down on him, gasping quietly even as Yuanrang’s hips rocked up to meet his own.

Just as his head was starting to spin from the lack of air, Yuanrang moved. The hand around Wenyuan’s wrist shifted it up, and slipped it into his own hair. Wenyuan pulled the knot loose, first, tossing the cloth away. Then he sank his fingers into the falling strands, finding the strip of leather that kept the eyepatch in place, and tugged it loose.

As he pulled back, Yuanrang’s eye was closed. Leather fell away.

The scar was ugly: a single crooked line crisscrossed with several horizontal ones, a clear sign of clumsy stitches that sealed the eyelid permanently closed. Angrily red despite the years since the wound was new, it stood out stark amidst the dark gold of Yuanrang’s skin.

Leaning in, Wenyuan pressed his lips against it; barely enough pressure for him to feel the heat of the skin. His hand cupped the back of Yuanrang’s neck, and slipped forward until he could catch the hitching sob of his breath with his curling fingers.

“You have never told me the story of how you gained this,” he murmured.

“It is not one easy to tell,” Yuanrang said. His chuckle was hoarse and false-sounding, fading into silence. Wenyuan waited, and did not move away. Finally, with a sigh: “It was the Lady Fu Shou’s blade.”

Blinking, Wenyuan searched his memory. It was only moments later that he recognised the name: the boy-emperor’s Empress. If he remembered correctly, it was her who ensured that the current Empress would not have any food or water that was left untouched by poison or abortifacients. His breath hitched.

“How?”

“My duty was to find the boy,” Yuanrang said. His arm came cautiously around Wenyuan, and Wenyuan tugged it closed with one hand, leaning more of his weight against him. “When I found him, Lady Fu Shou was with him. I had not drawn my blade, then.”

He did not need to continue for Wenyuan to understand: the then-Empress had lunged at him with a naked blade, and he had been caught between his reverence for her and his surprise at her courage. 

Smiling against skin, Wenyuan pulled back. He brushed away the heavy lock of hair that threatened to hide the scar from sight, and he shook his head. “A mark gained from the fulfilment of duty,” he murmured. “A mark earned through respect and propriety.” Slowly, gently, he ran his thumb down the line, feeling the shudders of the lid beneath his skin. “Why would I not find it beautiful?”

Blinking his one working eye back open, Yuanrang stared at him. When Wenyuan quirked his mouth up into a wry smile, he laughed, leaning in and pressing their foreheads together again.

“A man of eloquence indeed,” he said, and kissed Wenyuan again before he could protest that his words were not merely well-spoken, but true as well.

Perhaps he didn’t need to, because Yuanrang did not reach for the eyepatch again. Instead, his hands splayed over Wenyuan’s shoulders, nudging him to lie on his back on the bed. His cock shifted inside him, deflating knot rubbing deep, and Wenyuan gasped and grasped at the sheets, arching upwards until only his shoulders remained pressed to the silk-covered bamboo.

Yuanrang made a low, pleased hum at the base of his throat. He pulled out, and dragged a whine from Wenyuan’s throat with him as slick and come spilled from his stretched hole to trail down his thighs and stain the sheets beneath. He parted his lips, about to ask why Yuanrang did not keep them tied, but there were fingers inside him now, sliding light over the rim before driving deeper inside.

The sound of his own ragged cry beat hard against his ears.

“For your eloquence, Lord Chancellor,” Yuanrang whispered, lips dragging over the curve of his ear, “you deserve a reward.”

“Yuanrang,” Wenyuan started, but he could say nothing else because callused fingers were running over his chest, trailing over his rising flush and scraping over his nipples. His hands flailed around the sheets. When his fingertips brushed against leather, he gripped the eyepatch tightly to it even as he raised a leg to wrap it around Yuanrang’s waist.

“Come,” he said. His hand brushed over the curve of Yuanrang’s cheek, nudging against the corners of the scars. “Take what is yours, as reward for the fulfilment of your duty.” 

Perhaps this could be said to be duty, to the Alpha who would be his. Perhaps this was selfishness, in seeking for nothing but pleasure for them both.

Laughing, Yuanrang kissed him. “And what a reward you are,” he said. 

Wenyuan tried to focus his blurring vision on Yuanrang’s face. He caught only that gaze, dark like the night skies in the midst of a thunderstorm, as Yuanrang settled himself on top of him. As fingers slipped back inside him, threatening to overwhelm his oversensitive nerves, he knew himself to be wrong on both counts. This was not duty; this was not selfishness either. This was…

This simply _was_ , and that was enough.


	6. Epilogue: 必有初, “beginnings are necessary”

_The tenth year of the Cao Dynasty, late spring  
Xu, the Kingdom of Wei_

“Our next petitioner has ridden hard through since last winter to reach Xu,” Wenyuan said, sliding his fingers down the list. “She hails from the town of Xihe, in the northeast.”

As Lord Cao sat up straighter in his throne – set upon the same platform as that which Wenyuan stood upon, except in the centre instead of tucked to the side – the woman came forward. She was dressed in plain cotton travelling clothes, without any hint of embroidery on her sleeves or collar, and her hair was tied back in the commonplace warrior’s style. As she slapped her fist into her palm in salute and knelt on the ground, soft puffs of dust rose from her body.

“This lowly servant, Li Za, pays her respects to the Emperor and the Empress,” she greeted. Wenyuan had to duck his head down to hide a smirk: so she _had_ heard something about how the Wei court was run, then. 

“Rise,” the Empress said.

Placing her feet on the ground, Li Za rose to her feet without unbending her back. She kept her eyes fixed on the ground as she said, “This servant expresses her deepest gratitude to the Empress.”

Waving a hand, Lord Cao said, “Say what you have ridden for months to say.” 

“Li Za comes on the behalf of the Governor Xie of Xihe, to whom she serves as humble secretary,” she said. “Your Majesty, the Governor begs for aid from the Emperor to help his people survive the next winter.”

Humming quietly under his breath, Lord Cao cocked his head to the side. “Word came that the rains were plentiful the past year in the northeast,” he said, one elbow resting on the wrought iron arm of his chair.

“Xihe is honoured that His Majesty has taken care to note its wellbeing,” Li Za replied, a clearly well-rehearsed response. “However, its troubles lie not in famine, but with the bandits.”

“Bandits?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Li Za nodded. “Down the Yangshui river that runs through our city, lie the mountains Daguo, Dongshan, and Yunwu. Bandits have taken refuge within their depths, and they often ride down to both the city and the surrounding farmlands to terrorise the common people.”

“Xihe came into my hands along with Liangzhou,” Lord Cao said, clearly thinking aloud. “Ma Chao was the Governor at the time, and he lost the Battle of Tong Pass to me.” His eyes narrowed. “How long has these bandits been plaguing you, Li Za?”

“Four years now,” Li Za said, her voice soft. Wenyuan made the calculations in his mind: the attacks, then, would have started a year, or less, after the battle had concluded. He could see from the thinning of the Empress’s lips that he made the same realisation, too.

“Defeated soldiers who ran away or deserted Ma Chao’s armies,” Lord Cao announced, snorting under his breath. He shook his head. “Why have you waited so long before making your way down to Xu?”

Li Za hesitated for a moment, her eyes lifting to peer towards the twin thrones before darting down again. She took a deep breath. “Xihe understands that aid from the Emperor requires soldiers,” she said. To her credit, her voice did not tremble. “Your Majesty, you have been waged in war for long years, and we…”

“You did not think we will have soldiers to spare,” the Empress finished for her. He had rested his glaive upon his lap, and placed his folded hands upon the polished cedar.

“A few bandits do not carry the import of the great matters of the state,” Li Za said.

“Threats against one city in Wei,” Lord Cao said, his voice steady, “are threats towards the entirety of my Kingdom.” He turned. “Lord Chancellor, what solution do you propose for this matter?”

Wenyuan parted his lips, about to reply, but he immediately clacked his mouth back shut. Despite the non-existent weight, words on his throat had the bile rising again. He bit hard on the inside of his cheek, but the shot of pain only sent his head spinning. By his sides, his hands clenched into fists, and drove his nails hard into his palms.

Through the spots of grey sparking to life behind his eyes, he said, “A hundred soldiers led by a Colonel or General who knows well mountainous terrain.” A pause. He swallowed hard. “Though staving off bandits would not need such numbers, Your Majesty,” he barely remembered the title that was required when there were members of court beyond the usual war council, “they are needed to guard the provisions that would be sent alongside them.”

“Rare are the soldiers of the east in this army,” the Empress murmured. When Wenyuan forced himself to focus, he realised that those dark eyes were scanning along the lines of the assembled generals and officials. “Dian Wei!”

General Dian, a tall and broadly-built Alpha, stepped out from the line. He saluted the Empress, and bowed. “Present, Your Majesty!”

“You are from Ningjing, in Henan,” Guan Yunchang pointed out. “Though that is far from Xihe, do you know well how battles can be fought along mountainous terrains?”

“Well enough, Your Majesty,” Dian Wei said. He lifted his head and flashed Li Za, at his side, a grin. “Though I don’t suppose that the peoples of Xihe will be providing tours?”

“The mountain passes are our shortest routes towards the south and the west,” Li Za said. “Our people travel them frequently for the sake of trade.” For the first time since she had been called, a ghost of a smile appeared on her lips. “I daresay, esteemed General, our knowledge should be sufficient for your needs.”

“Well then!” Dian Wei straightened, and banged a hand over his chest. “Your Majesty, please grant me three months, and I will bring the bandits’ heads to you!”

“Rotting and covered in flies?” Yuanrang’s voice, incredibly distinct, rang out from the assembled crowd. Wenyuan resisted the urge to twitch.

“General Xiahou has a point,” Dian Wei said, sounding contemplative. “What, Your Majesty, would suffice as a gift for providing me with this opportunity?”

Guan Yunchang raised an eyebrow very slowly. “A letter from Governor Xie would do, I believe,” he said, irony heavy in his voice. “As proof that the bandits have been dealt with.” 

Li Za’s shoulders were trembling; likely with laughter and with fear of letting out said laughter. Wenyuan glanced at her for a moment before he took pity. Sighing, he shook his head. “The mountains of the region are well-known for the richness of their plant life,” he said. When all attention turned to him, he shrugged. “Perhaps a few of the herbs that are harder to find near Xu will do well?”

“ _That_ ,” Lord Cao said, sounding as if he was a breath from breaking into laughter, “is an excellent idea, Lord Chancellor.”

“Your Majesty honours this lowly one with his praise,” Wenyuan replied automatically. His hand on his chest, he made to bow.

His head spun the moment it dipped. Grey stabbed like needles into the corners of his eyes, and Wenyuan bit back a gasp. He took a step forward, and his hand caught the edge of the table, slipped—

“Lord Chancellor!” Voices, so many, like knives. He should feel gratified by their concern, but the sheer volume only drive the needles sharper into his skull—

A warm hand on the back of his neck. Another pressed against his chest. Wenyuan sagged against the solidity in front of him, breathing in sharp through his nose. Fingers dug in deep into his nape, somehow finding the knots that had seated themselves there, and Wenyuan felt a shameful tremor go through his body at the relief.

Slowly, he opened his eyes.

Guan Yunchang stood in front of him, his eyes dark and narrowed. Over his shoulder – it never ceased to surprise just how _short_ the man was - Wenyuan could see Lord Cao, holding onto the Empress’s glaive with one hand as he ran the thumb of the other over the ceremonious silver blade. When his gaze caught Wenyuan’s, he did not speak. 

“Your Majesty,” Wenyuan heard himself croak out.

Those fingers were still kneading into the back of his neck. Wenyuan made to pull away, but the hand on his chest shifted upwards, one thumb digging into the spot right above his armpit. Wenyuan was no physician, and thus could not understand why his shoulders sagged immediately, bowing forward even as he tried to not crash towards the man who had stood from his throne for his sake.

“You are unwell, Chancellor,” the Empress said. His voice was very quiet.

“It is but a mild chill from the unseasonable winds,” Wenyuan said, and ignored the fact that his neck still felt cold despite the Empress’s warmth; that his skin was slick with sweat beneath the heavy layers of silk. “There is nothing to worry about, Your Majesty.”

“That would be reassuring,” Guan Yunchang said, head tilted to the side, “if you ever had a good estimation of your own health.”

Humiliation set his insides aflame. Wenyuan clenched his hands, and fought down the flush that tried to creep up his cheeks. “This lowly officer,” he said, “will manage the rest of court just fine.” Dark eyes rested on him for a moment. Then the Empress let go so abruptly that Wenyuan had to scramble to catch himself. Luckily, this time, he managed to hold onto the edge of the desk. He blinked the grey spots out of his eyes and straightened his sleeves. 

As footsteps rang out, heralding the Empress’s return to his throne, Wenyuan faced the silent court again. He noted, distantly, that Li Za was keeping her head bowed down deep, and she had not moved for the past minutes. Beside her, Dian Wei was frowning, shifting from foot to foot.

“General Dian Wei will bring a hundred soldiers to Xihe to fend off the bandits, and with them will be provisions to last the city through the winter,” the Empress said. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw as his pale fingers brushed over Lord Cao’s as he retook his glaive. “Has anyone objections to such a plan?”

“Your Majesty,” Dian Wei said. His head was bowed once again. “I have no protests against the order. Except, perhaps, a suggestion?”

“What is it?” the Empress cocked his head.

“Instead of a hundred soldiers, for whom I will have to bring along food to feed,” Dian Wei hesitated for a moment. “May I instead bring twenty, and Colonel Xiahou?”

The Empress blinked. Amidst the crowd, a young woman’s head snapped upwards, her eyes – nearly as bright as Yuanrang’s, and with the same shape – widening.

“Colonel Xiahou has no greater expertise with the mountains than you,” the Empress pointed out.

“No, Your Majesty,” Dian Wei said. “But she knows herbs well, and she has a deft hand with a blade.”

Making a contemplative sound at the base of his throat, the Empress raised his glaive and laid it once more across his knees. “Come forward, Colonel Xiahou Hui,” he said. When Yuanrang’s cousin came forward, head bowed, he cocked his head to the side. “Has the General spoken the truth?”

Wenyuan tried to focus, but he could catch none of the rest of the conversation. There was only a roaring in his ears, like the grey had shifted from image to sound and was invading his neck. The sweat on his skin turned sticky in the near-summer heat was made worse by the enclosed room of the court. Surreptitiously, he allowed his hand to press against the edge of the table again, letting the sharpness of it dig into his palm, but there was no use.

Then, just as suddenly as it came, the roaring retreated. No, not as suddenly: Wenyuan blinked at the sight of Li Za on her knees.

“Xihe gives its greatest gratitude to the Emperor and Empress,” she said. “If there is anything Your Majesties will ever require of us, then we will do our best to provide.”

“We might need your able-bodied for soldiers,” Lord Cao said. When Li Za lifted her head, he shook his head, lips twitching at the corners. “But not for long years yet, for now our numbers are not wanting. Do not worry overmuch.”

Digging his palm harder into wood, Wenyuan saw the Empress reach over and brush against Lord Cao’s sleeve. They exchanged a glance that spoke volumes without words.

“Court is adjourned,” Lord Cao said, brisk. “All other cases will be heard tomorrow morn.”

The pain shooting up his hand was enough, just barely, for Wenyuan to salute Lord Cao and the Empress’s exit. He breathed out sharp through his teeth, scanning the room after their footsteps faded. Dian Wei had a hand on Li Za’s elbow, leading her and Xiahou Hui towards the door, clearly to plan their trips. Most of the other generals and officers outpaced them.

No one was looking at him.

“Wenyuan.”

Closing his eyes, Wenyuan corrected himself. “Yuanrang,” he said, his voice soft. “I’m fine. Please don’t worry.”

“How can I not?” Yuanrang asked. The boisterousness of his voice when speaking to Dian Wei had faded, leaving only quiet, ringing concern. “At least let me escort you to your quarters.”

“My office,” Wenyuan corrected. He tried to smile. “It is the middle of the day.”

Yuanrang opened his mouth, clearly about to protest. There was a stubborn set to the corner of his lone eye that told Wenyuan that actions, not words, were necessary to convince him. If he needed that, then… Pushing himself away from the table, he straightened. He took a single step forward.

This time, the grey overwhelmed him so quickly, and covered his eyes and ears so wholly, that the world went black. He didn’t even feel the arms that caught him.

*

When he blinked open his eyes, it was to half-darkness. His eyes flickered to the side, but he did not need his vision to clear fully to notice the breeze in the room. Despite it, he was warm: there was a blanket on top of him, heavy and thick enough to weigh down his arms. He tried to sit up; tried, for stars of pain burst into being the moment he lifted his head. Wenyuan pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut as he curled forward, wrapping an arm around his chest from above the blankets.

At that moment, the door slid open. The _thump_ of it hitting the wooden frame juddered his spine. Wenyuan tried to open his eyes, but he was only capable of gasping before a familiar hand wrapped around the back of his neck again. “Breathe in,” the highly-honoured voice said, and he was obeying even before he could protest.

Mint hit his nose, sharp and refreshing, and nearly overpowering the gentler spice of ginger beneath. The grey retreated, and Wenyuan took another shuddering inhale before he could help himself. When the rim of the cup pressed again his lips, he was tilting his head back to let the bitter liquid down his throat before he could help himself.

He coughed out a weak, “Your Majesty,” even as knuckles stroked down the sides of his spine. Wenyuan shuddered at the touch, and his arm tightened around himself, shifting lower to press against his stomach.

“Over the past two months, sao-zi has told me about the times she had watched Lady Sun and Lady Mi carry their children,” the Empress said. “Though Confucius might be incorrect about many ideas, he was right that omegas are better suited for this.”

Finally managing to crack an eye open, Wenyuan stared at the man seated in front of him on the bed. “I,” he started. A dragging inhale, and he shook his head. “Your meaning is lost to me.”

The Empress only continued to stare at him.

“Uh,” he said, eloquently. At the Empress’s amused look, he rubbed his wrist over his eyes. “Your Majesty, you mentioned Lady Sun and Lady Mi.” He peeked at the other man over his cotton sleeve. “I am a beta. It might not have…” he hesitated. “Taken.”

Sighing, Guan Yunchang shook his head. He stood up to place the cup on the table a distance away, his footsteps heralding ceramic clicking soft against the wood. “Mengde told me,” he said, voice very soft, “you denied five of your heats before finally allowing yourself to have one.” His lips quirked up into a small smile. “If General Xiahou did not manage to get you with child after waiting for so long, Wenyuan, then perhaps he needs to visit the physician to have himself checked for sterility.”

Wenyuan stared. His throat was so frozen that he could not even choke on air. Distantly, he remembered that: despite his current station, despite the refinements in his speech and manners learned through the years, Guan Yunchang was born a farmer’s son, and had spent his entire life among soldiers.

“Besides,” the Empress continued, blithely ignoring Wenyuan’s gaping, “you are already exhibiting the signs.”

“It is a cold brought on by the unseasonable winds,” Wenyuan heard himself said.

Somehow, the Empress managed to look incredibly unimpressed with him without moving a muscle. Wenyuan forced himself to not give into the instinctive twitch. 

At that moment, the door opened again. By now, Wenyuan had recognised the room to be within his own quarters, and so he managed to resist the urge to fling the cup at Lord Cao as his words floated inside along with the sound of his footsteps: “It was Yuanrang who caught you and brought you here. But I ordered Dian Wei and Xiahou Hui to sit on him until he is once more allowed into your presence.” A pause. “Well, they are distracting him, at any rate. Dian Wei would break his bones if he truly sat on him.” 

To the background noise of the Empress’s quiet snickers, Wenyuan said, “Allowed by whom, my lord?”

“By you,” Lord Cao said. He was smiling, blithe, as he stepped away from the door. There was a candle in his hand, and Wenyuan resisted the urge to squint or cover his eyes as Lord Cao approached him. “Once we have finished discussing the details of your wedding.”

“What,” Wenyuan said.

Placing the candle on the table, next to the cup, Lord Cao swept the silk of his robes away before he sat down on the flat wooden surface. There was a perfectly serviceable chair extremely close by – tucked against the table, in fact – but. Wenyuan clicked his teeth back shut.

“You will not admit the current state of affairs without force,” Lord Cao said. “This, Wenyuan, is force.”

Wenyuan opened his mouth. Closed it. Swallowed. “This lowly one is honoured that the Emperor and Empress are taking a direct hand into his affairs,” he said, lowering his head. “But there is no need.”

“What,” Guan Yunchang said, his voice steady, “are you so afraid of?”

The Empress’s honesty should inspire admiration in him. Yet all Wenyuan could feel was the thick bile of resentment, rising up to the back of his throat. He looked down at his hands. The words that came to him before he succumbed rose again:

_I can’t, my lord. I can’t, for my hands are too small and my wrists too weak to hold onto both the weight of my office and the width of his body._

__His breath hitched. “What use is an officer,” he said finally, “who cannot stand beside you, my lord, due to the failings and needs of their body?”

A heavy sigh. Without raising his head, Wenyuan could tell that his lord and the Empress had exchanged another glance.

“In Yuanzhou,” Lord Cao started, “Xu Chu brought me gold, gilded in its worthlessness, yet I looked at his shoulders and saw the strength of his determination to serve me.” He paused, taking a breath. “Near the Zhanghe River, Li Dian fled from the battle, and came later begging on his knees to return, and I allowed him for his eyes shone with the sincerity of his apology.” Wenyuan’s eyes fell close.

“Ten years ago,” Lord Cao continued, standing up and taking the few steps to the bed, “within this palace, the soldiers who used to be ours fought against us. I could not hate them, for in their white knuckles I saw the craving need for belief in something greater than themselves, greater than mere humanity.” Another paused, and he folded back his sleeves.” In the city of Ye, Dian Wei professed his ignorance of administration, but there was blood on his armour, and the scarlet called to me of his ferocity in battle.” Wenyuan’s hands clenched into fists.

“At Chibi,” Lord Cao said, “with battles endlessly looming, our soldiers fell ill, their swords and spears clattering on the dirt ground. With tears of exhaustion streaming down their cheeks, they sobbed to go home. But I heard in their trembling voices their desire for victory.” He took another breath. Beside him, the Empress’s sleeves brushed against each other as he folded his arms. 

“Tell me, Lord Chancellor. Will you find fault in them for being incapable of fulfilling my every need?”

“My lord,” Wenyuan choked out.

“From quartermaster I have raised you to Chancellor,” Lord Cao said. His fingertips brushed the edge of Wenyuan’s face, tugging light against the tangled strands loosed from the tie. “Not only for your devotion, though its brightness was blinding, but for the clearness of your sight. When I was blinded…” A soft chuckle. “You caught my blade with your bare hand, and with your shed blood you made me see.” 

“Please, my lord,” Wenyuan breathed. “You honour me too greatly.”

“I honour you for the clearness of your vision,” Lord Cao said, and the correction was delivered in such a gentle voice that Wenyuan trembled even more. “But now you have blinded yourself to your own needs.” Fingers nudged at his chin. Wenyuan lifted his head. Lord Cao’s eyes were creased at the sides, and, in the dim light of the room, the grey at his temple glimmered like the silver threads at his sleeves.

“You have blinded yourself to your own worth.”

Tales aplenty spoke of officers who felt their lives gratified by the approval of their lords. But, looking into Lord Cao’s eyes, he knew it was not the same. It was as if Lord Cao had breathed steel into his spine with those words, and so now he could stand straight without the brace of his duty caging him.

“Thank you,” Wenyuan said. He did not bow his head, instead meeting Lord Cao’s eyes steadily.

Beside Lord Cao, the Empress made a soft noise; little more than a chuff at the back of his throat. “I think,” he said, “General Xiahou can be allowed here once more.”

Yuanrang could not have convinced him, Wenyuan knew. Yuanrang, too, was caged by his own duties; trapped by his own understanding of it. He would never allow himself to break Wenyuan’s bars and his own even when his arms had the strength. 

“Please,” he said. 

Lord Cao’s eyes narrowed, staring deep into his gaze. Whatever he was looking for, he seemed to have found it, because he nodded, and his smile widened. Standing, his hand left Wenyuan’s chin, and turned palm-up in offer to the Empress.

They headed for the door together, Wenyuan looked at their retreating backs, formulating and reformulating his words for a moment before he tipped his head up.

“My lord, Your Majesty,” he called. “Please do your Chancellor a boon by not planning his wedding.”

Looking at him over his shoulder, Lord Cao grinned. “Ah, to grant a boon through idleness. If only all officers were so easy to please.” The Empress snorted, shaking his head. As they stepped through the threshold, they closed the door behind them. Only when wood clacked against wood again did Wenyuan allow himself to grin; only when their footsteps had faded did he release the laugh building in his throat.

When it faded, he drew his knees upwards. With them as a shield, he ducked his head down, and loosened his hair. The strands hid his face like a thick curtain as he splayed both hands over his sternum, and slowly brought it downwards, inch by painstaking inch. As thundering footsteps approached, his palms hovered above his abdomen.

“Wenyuan.” That well-loved voice sounded strangled.

“Come here, Yuanrang,” Wenyuan said. His eyes fell shut as he felt Yuanrang climb into the bed and settle behind him, squeezing himself into the space between Wenyuan and the wall.

Yuanrang’s breath hitched when he noticed Wenyuan’s hands. His callused fingers lowered to brush along Wenyuan’s forearms, touches soft and light before they tangled with Wenyuan’s own. 

They crossed that final inch together with Yuanrang’s lips in his hair.

“You’ve been patient,” Wenyuan whispered.

Chuckling, Yuanrang pressed a long, lingering kiss to his temple. “I’m used to waiting,” he said. His thumbs drew slow, wondering circles over Wenyuan’s skin, above where the child they made together rested. “Thank you.”

Despite himself, Wenyuan laughed. He shook his hair out of his eyes before he turned his head to meet Yuanrang’s single one. “I should be saying that to you,” he said. Without this man, he would’ve had no reason to understand the vague shape of himself outside the cage of his duty.

Gaze holding onto his, Yuanrang smile. He leaned in, and their lips met again.

As he allowed Yuanrang to bear his weight, Wenyuan remembered his words from two months ago. _A large family_ , he had said.

Well, Wenyuan did not know if his body was capable. But he did know this:

It was long past time he started training a replacement, wasn’t it? 

_End_

* * *

Excerpt taken from _Records of the Three Kingdoms: Book of Wei_ , by Chen Shuo, Volume 17: “Biographies of Zhang, Yue, Yu, Zhang, and Xu,” pp. 03-05, published in the third century AD. Translated by an anonymous source.

  
**Zhang Liao (Wenyuan)**  
**張遼 (文遠)**  
**169-222 AD**  


****

Born in Mayi county, in the Yanmen Commandery in Bing province, Zhang Liao was a descendent of Nie Shen, who served as a spy to the Xiongnu tribes. At the time of his birth, his family was already dying, pursued constantly by enemies. Records showed that they changed their surname in 176 AD to avoid enemies. However, at the age of ten, most of the family was killed in a sudden assault, with only Zhang Liao and his father’s first wife – a beta – managing to escape to Jinyang, the provincial capital of Bing.

Described as gifted scholar and capable administrator even in his youth, Zhang Liao obtained a post as a minor officer under the Inspector of Bing province, Ding Yuan. Ding Yuan noticed Zhang’s talent very quickly, and he sent him out often as escort for trade routes. During his fifteenth year, he was sent on an arduous journey towards Dunqiu. It was during this trip that he met his future lord, the Grand Martial Progenitor Emperor.

At this time, the Grand Progenitor had been transferred from the imperial court to Dunqiu to serve as prefect, holding the post of Gentleman-Consultant. No records had been kept regarding their first meeting. One statement regarding the matter was attributed to Grand Marshal Xiahou: “His Majesty changes the tale every single time he is asked about it, and Wenyuan will not refute or confirm any of them.” Upon his return to Jinyang, Zhang Liao entered his style, Wenyuan, into the familial records.

At the end of Guanghe era [184], the Yellow Turbans rebelled. Ding Yuan led a group of followers to join the Grand Progenitor in Ji’nan. Under Ding Yuan’s recommendation, the Grand Progenitor assigned to Zhang Liao the position of quartermaster for the troops.

[…]

In the twenty-fifth year of the Cao dynasty, the Grand Progenitor abdicated the throne in the favour of his firstborn and heir, Cao Jie, after the death of Guan Yunchang from an injury received at the Battle of Jingzhou against Eastern Wu. In the second year of the reign of the Great Conqueror of the South, Zhang Liao retired as Chancellor for the Kingdom of Wei. He died the next year of illness. Upon his death, the Emperor wept at the loss, and bequeathed upon him the posthumous title of Resolute Marquis. The Grand Progenitor was reported to not leave his palace for the next week, receiving only Grand Marshal Xiahou Dun for company.

The position as Chancellor was then filled by the Grand Progenitor’s third child, Cao Ju. In later years, Cao Ju reminisced about his former tutor: “If I have but one wish, it is for my honoured older sister to have a right hand such as Master Zhang. But one such as him can only be found if one searched far and wide, and even then the lands would not yield such a gem.” 

Zhang Liao was married to Xiahou Dun, and bore him eight children. Their second-born, Xiahou Mao, twin to the Lieutenant-General Xiahou Hu, became the Empress of the Conqueror of the South.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Li Za’s name is 李匝, the first being a common surname, and the second meaning “to surround” and also “to extend.” She, like Governor Xie, are entirely fictional with no historical basis. In fact, Ma Chao’s battle with Cao Cao takes place in 211, a year _after_ 210 (i.e. the tenth year of Cao dynasty in this fic). I have finagled with the timelines intensely because, in 209, Cao Cao has already defeated Liu Bei, and Ma Chao is one of Liu Bei’s commanders. All of the incidents mentioned in Mengde’s speech are also fictional. 
> 
> Wenyuan’s biography above is also fictional. For his actual biography from _Records of the Three Kingdoms_ , please look [here](http://kongming.net/novel/sgz/zhangliao.php). However, Xiahou Mao is really Yuanrang’s second son, and he was married to Cao Cao’s daughter, the Princess of Jinghe (who is not Cao Jie.) Xiahou Hu, mentioned above, this universe’s version of _Zhang_ Hu, Wenyuan’s real life oldest son.
> 
> If you remember me teasing about Cao Jie’s courtesy name given to her by her future father-in-law in _like sleeves, like limbs_ … yes, that’s Yuanrang. Yes, the future Emperor has a courtesy name that shares a character with Wenyuan.
> 
> This is the chapter in which I fucked with historical accuracy intensely. The timeline of the prior chapters are almost entirely accurate to a fault, including all of the details about routes. I did way more research for this fic than I did for _like sleeves, like limbs_. And I’m not even sure how many people would be interested. Ah well.
> 
> As per usual, most of what’s being said here is implied instead of overt. I would suggest rereading because I write deliberately so that people who want to do so can have fun discovering more things. 8D

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found on tumblr @[evocating](http://evocating.tumblr.com). Please feed the starving author comments. 8D


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